TechConnect Magazine Summer 2023 Edition: Optics & Photonics

Arizona: Where innovators turn for what’s next.

Something big, bold and exciting is happening in the Grand Canyon state. Cutting-edge companies are launching, testing and scaling new technologies in Arizona. Our culture of innovation, highly skilled talent pool, lean regulatory environment, and affordable operating costs provide the perfect platform for business growth and success. Beyond being a place where you can achieve your professional goals, Arizona also provides a lifestyle that allows you to achieve your personal goals. With year-round sunshine, endless outdoor activities, and a positive outlook, we play as hard as we work. It’s this perfect balance that makes life better here.

THE OPTICS + PHOTONICS

SUMMER 2023

PUBLISHERS

That’s a Switch

Optics opens door for ultrafast, light-based computing

Graduation to LEDs

Photonics leaving its mark on the film production business

Power to the People

Team creates algorithm to lessen the effects of outages

A First

for Arizona

New technology protects staff from radiation in treatment of heart disease

Tracing Epidemic Trails

Study tracks infection and immunity due to human viruses over time

Sandra Watson

Steven G. Zylstra

EDITOR

Don Rodriguez

EXECUTIVE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Alyssa Tufts

MAGAZINE DESIGNED BY:

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Maddie Santiago

EMAIL techconnect@aztechcouncil.org

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Publisher’s Letter

CASTING A LIGHT ON OPTICS AND PHOTONICS

It takes a village to… carve a valley. OK, I took some license with that proverb. But my change best captures a movement that has gained quite a bit of traction in Arizona.

I’m talking about a segment of the tech ecosystem that has created what is known as Optics Valley. That also is the name of an Arizona Technology Council committee with more than 100 member companies—and growing—of all sizes and specialties. In either case, they are behind the many applications and processes with optics at their heart—from everyday devices like smartphones to manufacturing and process automation to space exploration. And they are the suppliers that meet the need for help to bring to life items such as lasers, sensors and coatings used in fields including imaging and metrology.

If you don’t already know, at its heart the word “optics” refers to light. Optics is the science dealing with the origin and transmission of light, the changes it experiences and produces, and other events closely associated with it. Related to optics is photonics, which deals with properties and applications of photons—particles that comprise electromagnetic radiation waves—particularly as a medium for transmitting information.

How does Arizona fit in?

Optics is considered the crown jewel of industry clusters in Southern Arizona, where much research, innovation and companies were brought to life at The University of Arizona. Most Optics Valley Committee members are located in and around Tucson, where they are close to UArizona’s Wyant College of Optical Sciences and Steward Observatory.

To the north, the Phoenix metro area has become a technology and advanced manufacturing hub where optics and photonics technologies are refined and applied broadly in aerospace and defense, automotive, biomedicine and semiconductor industries. And expect more innovations to come for Arizona. Thanks to the region’s commitment to higher education promoting optical and photonic careers, Optics Valley is poised to benefit from the growing deep-space and space tourism industries.

Count on the Optics Valley Committee to continue thriving, too. It already has hosted events such as Arizona Photonics Days, an annual international optics and photonics conference, and offers resources such as the Optics Valley Resource Directory, connecting users with Arizona’s leading suppliers of optics and photonics hardware, software and services.

Of course, there are individual players. In this issue of TechConnect, we introduce you to just a sample of who is doing what in this field that continues to grow.

It takes all of them working together to ensure Optics Valley thrives. While valleys typically take nature centuries to create, this one has taken shape in our lifetime simply by people like you and me supporting one another for the common good.

Steven G. Zylstra is president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council and SciTech Institute.

LASERFOCUSED

Arizona companies set their sights on impacting a variety of industries

While developing products and services for critical sectors ranging from defense to health care, a wide variety of innovations with roots in Arizona’s optics and photonics community have come to light.

For example, superior optics are at the heart of the Javelin Lightweight Command Launch Unit (LWCLU) developed by Tucson-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense.

While the LWCLU’s primary mission is to launch the Javelin missile, the optics also allow standalone intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The system offers twice the sight range at night as its predecessor and three times the site range during the day, regardless of weather conditions. And its abilities are not just restricted to the Javelin. In its first test with the LWCLU, a Stinger missile engaged and defeated an unmanned aerial vehicle, validating the capability of the combined systems to defeat emerging threats on land and in the air.

Across town, Lightsense Technology has built a reputation by creating miniature, handheld spectrometers that can provide a host of materials analysis applications. Its new class of spectroscopy tools is helping solve problems in public health and environmental monitoring.

In particular, the DrugDetect F1 uses multispectral technology with high levels of accuracy to detect large or trace amounts of illicit drugs, even if they are in thin transparent bags. The lightweight point-and-shoot detector can be used easily in the field, improving safety and efficiency for law enforcement officers while lessening the risk of accidental exposure.

For its effort, Lightsense Technology was named winner of the Product Of The Year award by First Responder-TV for DrugDetect F1’s contributions to “save lives in the war on drugs.”

Also at home in the Old Pueblo, Spectral Instruments builds camera platforms made to be readily configured in ways that best align with customers’ intended uses while saving them development time and money. The 1900S is the latest platform that integrates core technology to be configured with a variety of different scientific chargecoupled devices (CCDs) operated in different configurations. CCDs are light-sensitive integrated circuits that capture images by converting photons to electrons.

Raytheon Missiles & Defense’s Javelin Lightweight Command Launch Unit

In the life sciences, drug discovery often uses chemiluminescence—emission of light during a chemical reaction—to indicate the interaction of compounds with specific targets relevant to the object being studied. Although the signals can be faint, the 1900S allows them to be detected and quantified. In astronomy, the performance of a cryocooled CCD allows the thermoelectric-cooled 1900S to be useful for astronomers conducting direct imaging with medium to large telescopes.

Speaking of astronomy, Tucson-based Astronomical Consultants & Equipment—more commonly known as ACE—has created the SmartDome, a control system that can set up observatory domes or other enclosures for easy control by computer.

SmartDome uses Astronomy Common Object Model standards to interface easily with widely used astronomy software so a dome can automatically point and track along with the telescope.

For those companies that want to create the next big thing, Breault Research Organization (BRO) of Tucson offers the

Advanced Systems Analysis Program (ASAP). The optical simulation software can be used for predicting the real-world performance of automotive lighting, imaging systems, luminaires, light pipes, bio-optic systems, medical devices, displays and coherent systems.

ASAP models the finest details of optical systems, which means users can depend on their simulations to mirror real-world performance.

Optical system designers around the world rely on ASAP for virtual prototyping with great accuracy and confidence as the software analyses validate designs and support smooth transitions to manufacturing.

A range of services is offered in Phoenix at Benchmark Electronics’ RF and Photonics Center of Innovation. Expanded capabilities of optical integration, photonics testing and packaging provide customer support in cutting-edge applications such as high-speed digital communications, high performance computing, sensors, and laser systems as Benchmark’s photonics team works with industry innovators to develop reliable, repeatable manufacturing processes for their designs.

The lab’s test and measurement platforms enable both process development and production, including tunable lasers, polarization synthesizers and optical power meters to measure bit error rate test, polarization-dependent loss and return loss of passive optical components. These platforms can be used across the design, development and manufacturing workflow to verify performance of complex light-based communications systems and conduct comprehensive characterizations of optical components, network elements and optical fiber networks.

FUTURE FORECAST

Experts offer their views on optics and photonics trends

Metalenses. Quantum computing. Augmented, virtual and mixed reality. These will be the focal points in the years ahead for optics and photonics.

At least that’s the forecast of three Arizona experts who were featured in the recent AZ TechCast “Optics Valley: The State of Arizona’s Optics Industry” sponsored by the Arizona Technology Council.

Providing their views based on their work were Jennifer Barton, director of the BIO5 Institute at The University of Arizona; Gregory Quarles, CEO and president of Applied Energetics; and Katie Schwertz, design engineering manager at Edmund Optics.

These were their views in their own words:

Barton: “We think of light as photons or waves. And so for metalenses, we have to think about it as a wave and how we can use these tiny structures that are much, much smaller even than a wavelength of light to manipulate the light in ways that you either would need a big complex glass lens to use. How can we make things small? How can we make them inexpensive? You can theoretically just print these lenses right on the end of a fiber and then put the fiber in and you’ve got an endoscope.”

Quarles: “There’s a lot of centers that are being built around the country to focus on the quantum. I think most of the major optics institutes (have) five to 10 openings each in professor positions for quantum. They will be revolutionizing types of technology that we probably can’t even grasp. And just the things in terms of cryptography and the effort being able to protect the software, the data that you have with quantum. There is also going to be the opportunity to compute and try to zone in on what may be a central solution. We’re going to be working in the weather area trying to come up with better models so we can understand how to predict the weather patterns better. Things like that, that could be done with that type of computing power.”

Schwertz: “AR, VR, mixed reality. There’s all these pop culture expectations about what that can be and I think right now, you see the optics industry finding out what the reality is of what we can currently do and what we can be in the future with all the sci-fi-like movie expectations that have been set around mixed and augmented reality, and finding out where there’s really a true place for that technology going forward.”

The three were joined in their discussion by moderators Bianca Buliga, the Council’s director of marketing and communications, and Karen Nowicki, president and owner of Phoenix Business RadioX, in discussing why Arizona attracts optics companies, how these companies are supported and what Arizona and the U.S. can do to maintain industry leadership.

View the entire broadcast to learn more.

NEW GENERATION INNOVATORS

Each year, the Arizona Commerce Authority’s Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC) awards up to $150,000 to the most innovative companies seeking to commercialize new technology that creates sustainable and growing businesses in the state of Arizona.

Winning companies leverage the awards to grow their businesses and facilitate the state’s economic development goals. The AIC has been serving Arizona’s startup ecosystem since 2011, resulting in more than 2,000 applications and 125 awarded companies that are driving Arizona’s innovation ecosystem forward.

detects movement via biomechanics and sophisticated algorithms. Last year, players for the Women’s Premier Soccer League wore the padded, half-inch sensors during practice.

The Arizona Commerce Authority named Movement Interactive one of its 10 Arizona Innovation Challenge awardees in 2022. The annual business plan competition honors each awardee with a $150,000 grant to advance technology commercialization and create Arizona jobs.

Luster intends to use the grant to test the effectiveness of the technology and devise a commercial strategy to make it publicly available this fall.

The Phoenix-based company now has three sensors under development:

• Hiji®Band: intended for youth sports.

• Hiji®Sense: monitoring fall risks for the elderly.

Real-time concussion mobile app alert system

The tragic death of Hopi High School student Charles Youvella, who in 2013 died from a traumatic brain injury suffered during a football game, captured national headlines and hearts. It also moved Eric L. Luster to create lifesaving technology designed to detect and report concussions in real-time.

Luster, then a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University’s Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing, later founded Movement Interactive to protect and inform athletes and others of devastating head impacts.

“It’s definitely my motivation for this and I would like to honor him because he was the determining factor for me to say, ‘Hey, we need to get this technology out of the lab and start saving lives’,” says Luster, whose 12-year-old son at the time was scheduled to play the next day on the very field where Youvella died. “So, if there’s an alert and a parent is not even at a game, they can get that real-time information regarding their kid’s head impact.”

Movement Interactive’s smart mobile app works with small compact sensors to create a personalized data feed that

• Hiji®Tactical: diagnosing traumatic brain injury in military personnel and lowering the risk of long-term complications.

At 19, Luster was stationed at U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca in Southeast Arizona, about 15 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Illinois native later became a chemical, biological and nuclear specialist charged with training hundreds of soldiers on how to survive in a chemical or biological environment. He deployed with the 40th Signal Battalion and was responsible for 42 personnel and $20 million in equipment used in Northern Africa, Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Luster began developing his own technology after working as a senior systems engineer for the Virginia-based Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, which recruited him after the Army to add nuclear biological chemical sensors onto a computer network.

Luster lauded the Arizona Commerce Authority’s startup programs and resources, along with workforce talent through ASU as reasons for launching his company here. “The ACA has been instrumental in helping me achieve and hit key milestones with the business throughout the years,” Luster says.

To date, the company has six employees with a Tempe manufacturing facility and has raised more than $500,000.

We are proud to feature five of the 2022 Arizona Innovation Challenge awardees. The first five were profiled in the previous issue of TechConnect.

ARIZONA

Founder Eric Luster

Portable brain health screenings with rapid results

Ayushi Patel, Andy Bhushan and Trevor Silence created the digital health company CenSyn to ensure accessibility to quick and accurate brain health screenings outside hospital settings.

“We’ve all had personal experiences where we needed brain data for either ourselves or our loved ones and it just took too long,” says Patel, CEO of CenSyn. ”It’s not a fun place to be when you’re anxiously waiting to see if everything’s OK.”

The founders began discussing concepts that led them to develop the PenEEG. The trademarked, pen-shaped medical device can be placed on a patient’s forehead to record brain electrical activity and retrieve data within minutes for multiple conditions such as seizures, concussions, strokes and psychiatric disorders.

They refer to it as a “stethoscope for the brain” and liken it to an electrocardiogram on an Apple Watch that could track the strength of electrical signals producing a heartbeat.

Once the team hatched the groundbreaking idea, they spent more than three months talking to doctors, sports trainers and nurses. That experience solidified their mission to dedicate their lives pursing this life-saving innovation.

CenSyn is a 2022 awardee of the Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC), the Arizona Commerce Authority’s annual business plan competition designed to support cutting-edge startups in commercializing their discoveries. Each awardee receives a $150,000 grant.

The company plans to use the grant to increase its device production, expand its clinical collaborations in Arizona and commercialize it in multiple markets.

CenSyn’s proprietary platform will be available after an FDA clearance involving its iOS app on an iPhone or iPad, which would allow medical staff to wirelessly view brain data inside and outside hospital settings rather than waiting the typical four to 48 hours. The founders also envision PenEEG being used by athletic trainers to record a healthy baseline for their athletes before their season begins and for use on the sidelines.

CenSyn already has forged a strategic partnership with HonorHealth, the state’s largest nonprofit health care system, and it intends to partner with other Arizona health care organizations.

“Building our platform alongside customer feedback helps ensure that we deliver the right value to clinicians and organizations around the world,” Bhushan says.

The co-founders all relocated from California and said they are invigorated by Arizona’s startup community, its cooperative spirit and its density of health care systems, sports performance centers and teams.

“The biggest thing we want to highlight is that, for a company coming from California to Arizona, we’ve been amazed at how incredibly collaborative the whole Arizona ecosystem is—how willing people are to go out of their way to make connections for you and to help you get to that next step.

“It blows my mind that there is a whole set of people in Arizona who are there to truly help you succeed,” Patel adds. “Arizona has a vibrant growing startup ecosystem and that was a big part of our decision.”

CEO Ayushi Patel, Co-Founder Andy Bhushan, and CTO Trevor Silence

Innovating hearing protection with a comfortable earplug

When an F-18 jet fighter is catapulted from the deck of an aircraft carrier, the sound is like a physical assault. It is so intense that without proper hearing protection, a single launch can put deck crew at risk of hearing damage. This is why, when making sound measurements at sea on the USS George Washington, Tony Dietz was amazed that his handler wasn’t putting in ear plugs.

“It’s too much trouble,” his handler said. Dietz, who always struggled to fit his own earplugs, absolutely agreed.

A former Royal Australian Air Force flight test engineer and NASA scientist with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering focused on jet engines, Dietz had spent his career working with noise. At the time, he was leading the development of an advanced helmet for flight deck crews. However, the helmet wouldn’t provide full protection if crews didn’t wear their earplugs.

Dietz recognized the problem wasn’t with training or regulations, but with the earplugs themselves. He set out to develop a new type of earplug, one that is comfortable and easy to use so that people will wear them.

Memory foam earplugs were invented 50 years ago, and there has been little innovation since. Dietz worked for 10 years on his idea for a new type of earplug, one that is filled with fluid and inflated when inserted. Convinced it would work, he moved to Arizona and founded Paxauris, which means “peaceful ear,” to bring his patented earplug to market.

Paxauris’ goal is to prevent noise-induced hearing loss, which is the most prevalent worker injury. More than 600 million workers are at risk worldwide in industries such as construction, manufacturing, mining, transportation and warehousing. In the U.S., 22 million workers risk losing their hearing every year while about $242 million in hearing-related workers’ compensation claims occur annually

But the real tragedy is the loss in quality of life of those affected. Hearing loss prevents communication, which can lead to social withdrawal, cognitive decline, depression and dementia.

The company is one of Arizona Commerce Authority’s 10 Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC) awardees in its annual business plan competition designed to support cutting-edge startups in commercializing their ideas and create jobs in the state. Each awardee receives a $150,000 grant.

Paxauris plans to use its grant to scale up its manufacturing operation and increase its marketing reach.

Currently funded by the U.S. Navy and the Defense Health Agency, Paxauris is also working with researchers from Arizona State University, Iowa State University, and the Medical College of Wisconsin to further improve the earplugs and add sensors to ensure the earplugs are being worn correctly and measure noise, impact and blast exposure. Human subject testing is planned for later this year, after which the earplugs will be ready to market.

“It’s been a journey,” Dietz said, “and support from the Arizona Commerce Authority has been a huge help.” After moving to Phoenix, he was a semi-finalist in the AIC in 2020, granting him entry into the ACA’s Virtual Accelerator. The 12-week venture development program offered expert advice from experienced entrepreneurs to help startups like Paxauris refine their pitches and business plans.

Paxauris was also selected for the 2021 Flinn Foundation Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program.

“Arizona’s entrepreneurial ecosystem makes it an attractive place,” says Dietz when describing his reasons for relocating to the Grand Canyon State. “The willingness of mentors to guide startups and fill knowledge and experience gaps is invaluable.”

Now with $4 million in government grants and six employees spread among Arizona, Montana and Alaska, Paxauris is well on its way to bringing much-needed quiet to those who need it.

Founder Tony Dietz

Detecting critical brain information in seconds

Intensive care unit and emergency room doctors desperately need new technologies to help them quickly determine stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI) in their patients. So, a team of them from Arizona invented a portable device that can obtain that crucial information in a flash.

Sense Neuro Diagnostics is focused on stroke and TBI patients and can provide an objective way to assess and monitor lifethreatening conditions. The portable device fits on a patient’s head like a cap to deliver a rapid, non-invasive brain scan that can detect TBI, stroke or brain hemorrhage in seconds.

“We are focused on the most acute cases: people who really need treatment as fast as possible,” says Geoff Klass, CEO of Sense Neuro Diagnostics. “We will identify it and get them to the right place at the right time because time is brain.”

Sense Neuro Diagnostics is one of 10 awardees of the Arizona Commerce Authority’s 2022 Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC). The annual business plan competition awards the most innovative companies with a $150,000 grant to help companies commercialize their products and create jobs and economic development in the state.

The company has opened an incubator space that is part of Arizona State University in downtown Phoenix, which Sense Neuro will use as its commercial headquarters. It also is participating in the Mayo Clinic Accelerator Program, allowing its team to actively work with Arizona clinicians and researchers.

“We look to Phoenix as being the real epicenter — the commercial launch of this company,” says Klass, adding that

the Arizona Commerce Authority has a thorough knowledge of what his company is trying to achieve and has offered valuable mentorship in the company’s growth trajectory.

“The ACA demonstrates a commitment that’s extremely impressive. You don’t find that typically in other states to this extent. They really have a real focus on innovation, job creation—all of that is very important. In startup land, it’s difficult,” Klass says. “You’re trying to develop your technology and getting the funding to develop it. The AIC gives us funding, public awareness—and that’s extremely important to us.”

The company is awaiting clearance from the Food and Drug Administration so its device can be commercialized early next year. Its prime target includes intensive care units and emergency room departments.

Sense Neuro Diagnostics is in the midst of two clinical trials. One features a prototype that has been developed as part of a $2.43 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense for use on the battlefield. The other is being conducted at 11 sites across the U.S., five in India and three in Canada.

Partners include former Chicago Bear and NFL Hall of Famer Mike Singletary; Dr. H. Hunt Batjer, a neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and former co-chairman of the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee; and Munro Cullum, a Dallas-based Ph.D. of neurophysiology who has done research in TBI and concussion. Sense Neuro Diagnostics is considering Phoenix’s Barrow Institute and Banner Health as possible future health care partners.

To date, Sense Neuro Diagnostics has raised $1.65 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, in addition to the AIC and U.S. military grants, amounting to $10.2 million in total investment.

CEO Geoff Klass

Offering digital media and PR opportunities for all

For the past 10 years, Brett Farmiloe ran a search marketing agency that served more than 500 small businesses and generated a billion organic search impressions. However, he was finding it challenging to obtain media visibility for his smaller clients.

He knew they had valuable experience and expertise to share, but many small companies had limited resources and did not have relationships in the news industry. So, he created Terkel, a subscription Q&A content platform open to everyone. “Most people believe search engines have all the answers, but the reality is that only a small fraction of our knowledge exists online,” says Farmiloe.

Terkel combines new technologies centered on artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing with first-person narratives to attract media coverage and generate public relations attention.

The Arizona Commerce Authority named Terkel as one of its 10 Arizona Innovation Challenge (AIC) awardees. The annual business plan competition, one of the largest in the country, selects the most innovative technology startups and provides a $150,000 grant toward commercializing their products. Terkel plans to use the grant to test and define its market fit with media companies.

Farmiloe, a Sonoma County, California, native, graduated from The University of Arizona. He had an idea to create a career education website to document the career paths of

successful people. He traveled with two friends in an RV to 38 states and interviewed more than 300 people. That experience led him to write a book, “Pursue The Passion,” and put him on an entrepreneurial path.

That 16,000-mile cross-country tour also planted the seed for Terkel because 15 years later, Farmiloe found a common theme still existed in the marketplace: People did not have a meaningful outlet to share the expertise and experiences that they accumulated over their lifetime.

“Why else would 300 people take the time to share their life secrets with a few random college kids in an RV?” he says. “The takeaways from that trip is the fuel that drives the core of Terkel: Everyone deserves to be heard.”

To date, more than 12,000 content creators have answered questions via Terkel to get their insights featured in articles in publications like Fast Company, American Express and more than 500 websites. Google, NASA, Zoom, Visa, Harvard University and small businesses across the globe have submitted answers via Terkel to share their knowledge and build their online profile.

The Scottsdale resident says he is grateful for the support of the Arizona Commerce Authority, including its Arizona Virtual Accelerator and the AIC.

“We’re honored to be recognized as one of Arizona’s innovative startups. Perhaps the most valuable ACA experience was viewing our business through a different lens,” Farmiloe says. “Every program is thoughtfully designed and executed well, which gives a great ROI for all participants.”

Farmiloe leads a technical team of four software engineers and has raised $1.1 million in seed funding with venture capital firm involvement.

Founder Brett Farmiloe

QUIET STRENGTH

Using sound and light to turn down the noise in quantum computing

BY HEIDI TOTH Ryan Behunin

Ever wondered why your credit score is what it is? Have you stored private information in the cloud that you want to remain secure? Thought about investing in cryptocurrency or have you worried about cyber warfare?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, quantum computing plays a role in your life—or at least it will when its usage becomes practical enough to run these data-intensive systems.

That’s where Ryan Behunin’s work comes in. Behunin, an assistant professor of applied physics and materials science and a researcher in the Center for Materials Interfaces in Research & Applications (¡MIRA!) at Northern Arizona University, explores fundamental questions about the interaction of light, sound and matter.

In 2022, his research project, “Controlling noise in quantum devices with light and sound,” was funded with a nearly $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER grant, which supports early-career faculty in their groundbreaking research. This work targets challenges to realizing practical quantum computers by helping the building blocks of the computers perform better.

Like classical bits, qubits—short for quantum bits—are a quantum computer’s basic units of information. Currently, the technology is too vulnerable to “noise”—disturbances in the environment—that corrupt the information stored in quantum computers to reach its full potential.

Behunin’s goal is to quiet that noise.

“Theoretically, quantum physics can enable powerful new computers that achieve massive exponential speedups over traditional forms of computing for certain calculations, permitting calculations that currently are intractable,” Behunin says. “Practically, however, the very quantum features that enable these remarkable properties are rapidly erased by a process termed decoherence, which is not unlike the way a plucked guitar string eventually relaxes.”

As a result, decoherence limits the lifetime of quantum states, posing challenges for practical quantum technologies. This project will show how decoherence can be controlled by manipulating sound waves using optics.

Noise in quantum mechanics operates much like static on the radio, making it difficult to “hear” the signal. The most problematic source of noise for many quantum devices is from two-level tunneling states (TLS). Physicists have yet to find an effective way to quiet TLS. This research will leverage the strong interaction between TLS and sound waves to develop new techniques that control and reduce this source of noise.

The answers Behunin is looking for have implications for cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and drug development—research that requires factoring huge numbers—as quantum computing becomes more prevalent. Faster, more accessible quantum computing could mean faster and more affordable creation of drugs or other organic materials.

“We can take a big step toward practical quantum technology if we can show how noise can be controlled and reduced in quantum devices,” Behunin says.

Heidi Toth is assistant director, communications in NAU’s Office of Communication and Media Relations.

SPACE SLEUTHS

Telescopes among UArizona’s tools to explore mysteries of space

BY LOGAN BURTCH-BUUS

Teams at The University of Arizona’s Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory have their sights set on the mysteries of deep space.

Buell T. Jannuzi, head of the department and director of the observatory, says astronomers are trying to answer some of humanity’s greatest questions: Where did we come from? Where will the universe end? How do galaxies form?

“For more than a century, the students, staff and faculty of the Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory have explored the universe together and shared what we learned with the world—and we are excited to continue our efforts into our second century,” Jannuzi says.

UArizona operates more than a dozen telescopes across the state, and helped build and operate observatories in Chile, Antarctica and outer space. Steward Observatory’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab is fabricating the primary mirror segments for the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile and UArizona is one of the founding partners in this future observatory. Also included under the Steward Observatory umbrella are the Arizona Radio Observatory, the Mount Graham International Observatory, the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter and the Sky School program.

Steward Observatory researchers were chosen by NASA to develop instruments for both the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, making UArizona the only institution to have led more than one instrument for NASA’s Great Observatories. The university also was selected to lead two of the three instruments for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

UArizona Regents Professors and astronomers Marcia and George Rieke play integral roles in the James Webb Space

Telescope, with Marcia serving as principal investigator for the telescope’s near-infrared camera and George as science team lead for the mid-infrared instrument. Both the Lunar and Planetary Lab and Steward Observatory use data from instruments like the telescope to understand the chemistry of planets around other stars.

What has contributed to decades of success? The university has been a longstanding world leader in space sciences for a variety of reasons, says Tim Swindle, director of The University of Arizona Space Institute, which supports the university’s space science research efforts and works to apply the vast experience of UArizona in the space sciences to new areas.

He says decades of successful research started with Arizona’s clear skies, high mountains and dry climate, which created an ideal environment for astronomy collaborations. Once the lunar missions took shape in the 1960s, the university became a hot spot in the United States for research involving spacecraft since some of the discipline’s preeminent minds already lived in the Old Pueblo. The university has since produced countless leaders in the field.

The university’s space sciences programs also have generated a long list of notable accomplishments for UArizona graduates. Brian Schmidt, who graduated from the university in 1989 with a double major in astronomy and physics, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011. Other alumni have served as directors of prestigious observatories, department heads and deans at universities, and leaders of large government scientific agencies.

“We have spread our wings so that a lot of people around the world who are involved in space science have some connection with The University of Arizona,” Swindle says. “In fact, by now, some of our toughest competitors are our alumni.”

Logan Burtch-Buus is a news writer at University Communications of The University of Arizona.

Rendering of the Giant Magellan Telescope’s final design once it is completed in the late 2020s. Steward Observatory’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab is fabricating the primary mirrors for the telescope.

THAT’S A SWITCH

Optics opens door for ultrafast, light-based computing

Imagine a home computer operating 1 million times faster than the most expensive hardware on the market. Now, imagine that level of computing power as the industry standard.

Researchers at The University of Arizona hope to pave the way for that reality using light-based optical computing, a marked improvement from the semiconductor-based transistors that currently run the world.

“Semiconductor-based transistors are in all of the electronics that we use today,” says Mohammed Hassan, assistant professor of physics and optical sciences. “They’re part of every industry— from kids’ toys to rockets—and are the main building blocks of electronics.”

Hassan led an international team of researchers that published the research article ”Ultrafast optical switching and data encoding on synthesized light fields” in Science Advances in February. Dandan Hui, a UArizona physics postdoctoral research associate, and physics graduate student Husain Alqattan also contributed to the article, in addition to researchers from The Ohio State University and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

Semiconductors in electronics rely on electrical signals transmitted via microwaves to switch (i.e., either allow or prevent) the flow of electricity and data that is represented as either “on” or “off.” Hassan says the future of electronics will be based instead on using laser light to control electrical signals, opening the door for the establishment of “optical transistors” and the development of ultrafast optical electronics.

Since the invention of semiconductor transistors in the 1940s, technological advancement has centered on increasing the

speed at which electric signals can be generated. According to Hassan, the fastest semiconductor transistors in the world can operate at a speed of more than 800 gigahertz. Data transfer at that frequency is measured at a scale of picoseconds, or 1 trillionth of a second.

Computer processing power has increased steadily since the introduction of the semiconductor transistor, though Hassan says one of the primary concerns in developing faster technology is that the heat generated by continuing to add transistors to a microchip would eventually require more energy to cool than can pass through the chip.

In their article, Hassan and his collaborators discuss using alloptical switching of a light signal on and off to reach data transfer speeds exceeding a petahertz, measured with the attosecond time scale. An attosecond is 1 quintillionth of a second, meaning the transfer of data a million times faster than the fastest semiconductor transistors.

While optical switches were already shown to achieve information processing speeds faster than that of semiconductor transistorbased technology, Hassan and his co-authors were able to register the on and off signals from a light source happening at the scale of billionths of a second.

This was accomplished by taking advantage of a characteristic of fused silica, a glass often used in optics. Fused silica can instantaneously change its reflectivity, and by using ultrafast lasers, Hassan and his team were able to register changes in a light’s signal at the attosecond time scale.

The project was funded by a $1.4 million grant awarded to Hassan by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The article was also based on work supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Young Investigator Research Program.

Logan Burtch-Buus is a news writer at University Communications of The University of Arizona.

Mohammed Hassan, a UArizona assistant professor of physics and optical sciences BY LOGAN BURTCH-BUUS

GRADUATION TO LEDs

BY JOSH EISENBERG

When actor Vin Diesel declared “The future is bright!” during his 2018 commencement address to graduates of New York City’s Hunter College, he unknowingly alluded to an evolving technology in the science of light waves.

Diesel actually captured the brightness and potential of light-emitting diodes—more commonly known as LEDs—in the use of lights, photonics and optics in the film business.

LEDs have revolutionized the field of lighting by altering the behavior of light waves. By manipulating the light spectrum, LEDs produce stronger, longer-lasting and more energy-efficient illumination compared to traditional incandescent bulbs. However, this technological progress poses challenges for camera lenses that struggle to adapt to the intense brightness emitted by LEDs.

To address this issue, some companies are designing more powerful cameras with secondary lenses or additional apertures, allowing for better compatibility with the high-intensity lighting. Others are incorporating reflectors or extra lenses directly into LED lamps to mitigate the impact on cameras.

Despite these efforts, there remains a need for further innovation like use of “barn doors” on stage lights to achieve more direct and controlled lighting conditions.

The University of Advancing Technology (UAT) serves as a leading example of an institution that fully embraces LED technology for applications with green screens, the backdrops placed in a shot to allow insertion of digital effects in postproduction. In turn, the backdrops are made to disappear through chroma keying.

The university has made significant enhancements to its chroma keying room by implementing state-of-the-art LED lights. These lights ensure even distribution of light, effectively eliminating any unwanted shadows on the walls.

As LED wall use gains prominence as seen in acclaimed productions like “The Mandalorian,” UAT anticipates further advancements in chroma keying techniques. This progress opens up possibilities for creating immersive LED-based gaming environments that utilize cutting-edge technologies such as the video game development tool Unreal Engine, whose use is taught in the university’s Gaming department.

By harnessing the power of LED technology in conjunction with sophisticated tools like Unreal Engine, the university aims to propel chroma keying to new heights.

This next level of innovation will eliminate the need for traditional green and blue screens, ushering in a new realm of visually stunning LED-lit environments. These captivating LED walls will serve as the canvas upon which vibrant gaming worlds are seamlessly programmed, offering an extraordinary visual experience for both creators and viewers alike.

LEDs themselves offer inherent color-changing capabilities, making plastic gels—traditional color filters—potentially obsolete. With a simple adjustment on LED banks, users can change the color of the light emitted. This development not only streamlines the lighting process but also reduces the environmental impact associated with gels.

Thanks to LED photonics, the future indeed is bright.

Josh Eisenberg is a digital video professor at the University of Advancing Technology.

Photonics leaving its mark on the film production business

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

BY TJ TRIOLO

Team creates algorithm to lessen the effects of outages

Reliable and safe electric power is the heartbeat of modern society. Anyone who has lost power for a significant amount of time knows how much it can upend life, from food spoiling without proper refrigeration to being unable to work because essential equipment can’t be powered on.

Mojdeh Khorsand Hedman, an assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, and doctoral student Zahra Soltani have developed an algorithm to reduce the impact of power outages and malfunction damage to devices connected to the power grid. “This technology enhances situational awareness, which is key for improving power system resilience,” Khorsand Hedman says.

Having power grid situational awareness means knowing the current status of three power grid parameters: network connectivity, referred to as breaker or switch status; the system state, which is the current voltage and power level flowing through the grid; and the location of outages affecting the grid. Currently, situational awareness technology uses two software modules to measure these parameters. One module verifies topology information that indicates which medium voltage lines— used for power distribution to customers—are live, reflecting network connectivity and switch status. The other module determines system state.

“These functionalities are highly dependent on the availability of measurements throughout the distribution network,” Khorsand Hedman says. “Such measurement devices are scarce and often not available. Thus, these modules are not fully utilized.”

This new, more complex algorithm developed by Khorsand Hedman and Soltani identifies all the necessary parameters at once while improving accuracy and the speed at which the network connectivity and system states are identified.

Instead of using measurements from a limited number of devices that may not provide the full picture of a grid’s status, Khorsand Hedman and Soltani’s algorithm uses data from homes’ individual smart meters. This eliminates the need to install a large number of measurement devices in a power grid’s distribution network and telecommunication of the devices’ data to utility control centers.

The growing presence of electric vehicles and distributed power generation resources—like those generating electricity in areas scattered around the grid through devices such as solar technology and windmills—inspired Soltani to come up with the idea for the algorithm.

“Successful transition from the conventional distribution system to this new paradigm requires accurate distribution network modeling and efficient management of these resources,” she says.

Soltani explains that greater accuracy in situational awareness is necessary because modern grids’ increasingly distributed energy resources cause higher variability in grid conditions.

The researchers intend for this technology funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy to improve electric power service for customers by reducing the duration of outages and making the voltage sent to customers more stable. This can also reduce the potential impact of malfunction damage to devices plugged into the grid.

Khorsand Hedman and Soltani successfully tested the algorithm with an electric utility company in Arizona. ASU is also in discussions with interested industry parties to license the technology.

TJ Triolo is the embedded communications specialist for Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering’s School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.

Electrical engineering doctoral student Zahra Soltani (left) and assistant professor of electrical engineering Mojdeh Khorsand Hedman operate a computer program to monitor power grid status.

Photographer: Erika Gronek/ASU

A FIRST FOR ARIZONA

New technology protects staff from radiation in treatment of heart disease

BY

HonorHealth Research Institute is among the first healthcare providers in the U.S.—and the first in Arizona—to use an advanced radiation protection system as part of the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.

Modern cardiac catheterization laboratories use multiple X-ray beams from different angles to produce high-quality images of the heart, major arteries and other tissues. These low-level radiation beams enable physicians to guide catheters and other devices during interventional cardiology procedures, which are non-surgical, catheter-based therapies for patients who do not require open-heart surgery.

While generally considered safe, repeated exposure to lowlevel radiation over time presents a potential cancer risk to doctors, nurses and other catheterization laboratory staff. Current standard radiation protection for operating room personnel—a lead apron—offers no protection to the head and face, with suboptimal shielding of the extremities, creating a potential risk of cataracts and certain cancers.

In addition, the weight of the lead apron has been associated with orthopedic injury of the spine, hips and knees.

In a recently completed study at HonorHealth Research Institute, investigators found the new radiation protection system called Protego® significantly reduces overall room radiation and in most cases eliminates exposure to physicians and nurses.

The findings published in the Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (JSCAI) may have a profound impact on reducing radiation exposure to healthcare workers. In nearly 70% of the cases, radiation exposure to the physicians and nurses was so low as to be “undetectable” using real-time dosimetry.

Results showed that of the 25 interventional cases completed using the Protego® system, 17 recorded undetectable radiation exposure. Four cases measured 0.1 millirem (mR) of total exposure, only about 5% of the 2.0 mR/hour maximum considered safe.

Dr. David G. Rizik, director of the Cardiovascular Research division at HonorHealth Research Institute, likened the use of radiological equipment without the protection of radiation shields to football teams playing without helmets.

“Since the first college football game in 1869, there have been dramatic equipment improvements to enhance the safety of the game and reduce injury to athletes,” says Rizik, who served as the clinical trial’s principal investigator and lead author of the published study. “Yet, interventional cardiology—one of the most advanced fields of medical science over the last half-century—has made no substantive changes in how to protect physicians and nurses who perform interventional procedures.”

The study—the world’s first side-by-side comparison of standard protection compared to the Protego® system—also suggests that the radiation reduction may eliminate the need for cardiac catheterization laboratory staff to wear the orthopedically burdensome lead aprons. The new system allows physicians complete freedom of movement, according to the study.

Steve Yozwiak is the senior research science writer at HonorHealth Research Institute.

Staff use the Protego® radiation shield in the cardiac catheterization lab at HonorHealth Research Institute.

STEVE YOZWIAK

TRACING EPIDEMIC TRAILS

Study tracks infection and immunity due to human viruses over time

By developing a new way of analyzing antibody signatures in repeat blood samples, researchers have shown they can pinpoint the timing and cause of recent infections across the full suite of viruses that infect humans simultaneously.

The global team of scientists, led by researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope, used the new approach to detect epidemic waves of infection at the population level, as well as the rise and fall of antibody responses within individuals.

The researchers used a powerful lab platform called PepSeq, which “allows us to look across the universe of human-infecting viruses to determine precisely which infections someone has encountered and when,” says senior author John Altin, assistant professor in TGen’s Pathogen Genomics and Integrated Cancer Genomics divisions, and one of PepSeq’s creators. “We can get all this information from drop-size blood samples, tested over time.”

The findings published in Nature Communications suggests PepSeq “could one day be widely deployed in the surveillance of disease, much like a weather forecast, allowing us to generate a far more complete picture of how infection and immunity will move across a population in space and time,” Altin added.

PepSeq, which was developed as a tool for viral antibody profiling by scientists at TGen and Northern Arizona University, works by designing a “library” of peptides of interest—short strings of amino acids that are the building blocks of proteins. Each peptide is then linked to a unique DNA tag, which allows the scientists to pinpoint which peptides are being targeted by which antibodies (or other proteins) in a sample.

The technology allows researchers to track antibody response to thousands or hundreds of thousands of peptide targets at a time, making it ideal for examining the full range of viral infections within populations and individuals.

“Most previous work in this area has taken a snapshot approach, using a single sample to map the whole history of viral exposures,” says Erin Kelley, TGen North bioinformatician and the paper’s first author, “but no information about when each virus was encountered.”

By analyzing blood samples collected over time, the researchers were able to add that time dimension, pinpointing when infections occurred and how antibody responses evolved.

The research team looked at blood samples collected from three different groups, with individuals ranging in age from 12 to 60plus and totaling more than 100 person-years’ worth of data.

One of the groups, the adolescent cohort study (ACS), collected blood samples regularly for 18 months from tuberculosis-infected 12- to 18-year-olds in South Africa.

The researchers were able to detect natural epidemic waves in the ACS data, including outbreaks of the respiratory viruses Influenza A and Enterovirus D, as well as the gastrointestinal Aichivirus A—in some cases showing that the viruses were widely circulating before being noted in the population. Rubella virus, which is not routinely targeted by childhood vaccination in South Africa, was also a notable infection in the ACS population.

The study revealed that antibody signatures remained detectable more than five years after an initial infection in some people. In other cases, the researchers saw antibody responses rise and fall again in an individual within a week or two.

These findings suggest “there may be opportunities to monitor someone’s immunological health, using these natural viral infections as a probe,” says Altin.

John Altin

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