December 29, 2022

Editor’s word: That is the ultimate installment in a four-part collection profiling researchers engaged on ASU’s compact X-ray free electron lasers. Learn the earlier article: Q&A with Regent Professor Petra Fromm, CXFEL Labs Chief Scientist with William Graves CXFEL Lab Director Robert Kindl.

As an undergraduate, Sam Teitelbaum had a really slim view of physics.
Obtain the complete picture of Prof. Sam Teitelbaum

“I now notice that physics is a instrument which you can take anyplace and a mindset that you need to use to deal with a wide range of issues,” he says.

Teitelbaum incorporates this strategy in his work to construct a compact X-ray machine at Arizona State College’s Biodesign Lab. An assistant professor within the Division of Physics and a principal member of the Biodesign Middle for Utilized Structural Discovery, his Teitelbaum helps information the design of the compact X-ray free electron laser (CXFEL).

On this Q&A, Teitelbaum talks about his influences and passions, his journey to ASU, and the way a few of his massive questions on physics as an undergraduate come full circle at CXFEL.

Q: What’s your function at CXFEL Labs?

reply: Formally, I’m chargeable for designing the quantum supplies utility within the CXFEL proposal. He’s additionally chargeable for a subset of the CXFEL laser system, particularly Overtake his geometry.

Unofficially, I am on standby as an experimenter who likes to troubleshoot issues. So I often discover myself within the CXFEL lab serving to college students work on lasers and construct gear. Being in a lab has a gravitational pull. There are such a lot of devices, and in contrast to a big nationwide lab, you need to use all of them and educate college students use them.

Q: What sort of experience do you carry to the crew?

A: In my analysis, I take advantage of free electron lasers, tabletop lasers, synchrotrons, and extra to grasp how supplies change. Taking water for example, ice melts when heated. However temperature is simply the random motion of atoms, and vitality is saved in matter as noise. And it takes time for that noise to build up. Utilizing our instrument, we’ve been in a position to be taught quite a bit in regards to the properties of matter by observing it on the very quick timescales through which particular person molecules behave. As a result of the noise did not have sufficient time to build up, it might trigger the fabric to endure transformations known as section transitions which can be so quick that the temperature cannot even be mentioned to exist. Can we use the concept that matter doesn’t require temperature to create new phases of matter?

What I carry to CXFEL is my expertise as an experimenter, guiding the design of compact X-ray sources and adapting experiments finished with tabletop lasers and synchrotrons to the work right here.

Q: How has your academic background contributed to your work at CXFEL Labs?

A: I acquired my PhD from MIT. There, he labored on shaping laser pulses to mainly arrive on the proper place on the proper time to check supplies higher. Usually, when performing these experiments, the experiment have to be repeated hundreds of thousands of instances, so the fabric have to be returned to the state it was in earlier than the laser pulse hit it. If it would not return to its authentic state, we’ll must discover a approach to get all the knowledge we’d like from a single laser pulse.

It seems that the identical type of method I used to get all of the details about the fabric in a single laser pulse can be the method I take advantage of to construct the laser undulator at CXFEL. rice discipline. Letting laser pulses do gymnastics is a really helpful idea that may do every part from manipulating supplies to extracting helpful data.

Q: What is among the challenges with the CXFEL challenge and the way do you and your crew overcome it?

A: CXFEL is a instrument that mixes two ideas in a novel manner: inverse Compton scattering and emittance trade. Emittance trade permits electron bunches to be exactly fashioned to emit X-rays abruptly. Inverse Compton scattering makes use of a high-power laser to generate his X-rays from an electron beam.

The emittance trade half imposes pretty stringent necessities on the electron beam. To make all of it work, lasers must do one thing new and distinctive. This represents an thrilling design problem that brings the entire crew collectively. That is the world the place the ASU’s strategy actually issues. CXFEL’s crew is smaller than his different XFELs. Making it work requires a really shut collaboration between laser scientists, accelerator physicists, engineers and even customers to get probably the most out of the supply. With a lot growth happening in parallel, this can be a difficult but additionally a chance to provide you with progressive methods to strategy the issue.

Q: What makes ASU place to construct these devices?

A: When you may have tasks like this that span totally different disciplines and departments, there may be quite a lot of friction. However all of us work very effectively collectively. ASU school appear to grasp that our job is to enhance the standard of the establishment as a complete and never essentially to the status of particular person analysis applications. There may be an understanding that ASU wants to ensure they’re doing attention-grabbing and rewarding issues. That manner we will maintain attracting good folks and do extra attention-grabbing and difficult issues.

Q: When did you uncover your ardour for science?

A: Once I began school on the College of Maryland, there was a professor of electrical energy and magnetism named Victor Yakovenko. He was a theoretical condensed matter physicist. On his first day, he walked into class with a small bowl of liquid nitrogen, a high-temperature superconductor known as yttrium-barium-copper oxide, and a magnet. He positioned the superconductor in liquid nitrogen and introduced it to under its crucial temperature. A magnet was then positioned over the superconductor, inflicting it to levitate. And what he mentioned was, “No person is aware of why this materials can do that at this temperature.”

I did not know physics had such an issue. I appreciated the thought of ​​having little rocks far and wide, however more often than not I had no thought how they labored. I fell in love with it.

At present, among the key experiments we take note of for quantum supplies purposes of CXFEL are investigating that very materials, yttrium-barium-copper oxide.

Q: What different vital moments in your profession have introduced you to the place you’re at this time?

A: As an undergraduate, I turned very focused on lasers, however didn’t have the chance to do a lot undergraduate analysis on supplies. I used to be in a position to apply it. After that, my postdoc job mainly began as a result of I had questions on an issue I used to be engaged on. I felt that I couldn’t see the substances that I actually wished to see with optical lasers. After folks knew what he was doing with the XFEL, I wished to reply these questions and actually he wished to see what the X-rays wanted.A lot of the crystal movement is the optical Not simply accessible with a laser. To ensure that an optical laser to watch crystal vibrations, it could solely be seen if all of the cells within the crystal are doing the identical factor on the similar time. If you consider all of the totally different preparations of vibrations that may happen, that is a really, very, very small a part of them.

Q: You described physics as “a instrument you may take anyplace”. Do you apply that considering to your private pursuits and hobbies? Do these pursuits complement your work?

A: You will note physics all over the place you go. i like biking One of many enjoyable issues about biking is how simple it’s to do all your individual bike repairs. A bicycle is a machine the place you may simply see all of the transferring elements and the way they work collectively. However I additionally actually like biking as a result of it permits me to show my head off and never take into consideration physics for some time. I believe all of us want a while away from work. Cooking is one thing I really like and has lengthy been related to chemistry, which I discovered as an undergraduate. You should utilize chemistry to tell your cooking and perceive why sure recipes work and others do not.

On the one hand, my background in visible arts and theater has actually helped me in my work as a scientist. Each have been very useful in honing my communication abilities and taught me current my work in a enjoyable manner. If you cannot clarify what you do as a scientist in a transparent and compelling manner, you may’t work with anybody, you may’t practice anybody. Grants and awards are a lot tougher to return by.

Q: What motivates and excites you most about your work?

A: Collaborate with college students. One of many good issues about being a school member is that he can all the time keep in mind how he felt when he first discovered one thing like this. I believe that basically prevented me from being cynical about my job.

Q: What potential purposes or facets of CXFEL are you most enthusiastic about?

A: Then, is it the high-temperature superconductor yttrium-barium-copper oxide that I discussed earlier? A lot of the superconducting “working” that we’re focused on is within the crystal’s copper and oxygen atoms. CXFEL permits real-time viewing of electron shuffling throughout chemical bonds between oxygen and copper atoms. You may see what occurs whenever you hit a excessive temperature superconductor with a strong laser discipline.

These supplies are predicted to have new states of matter that exist solely when the laser discipline is turned on, and might solely be seen with machines just like the CXFEL. We get to see new issues, and seeing new issues adjustments the way in which we take into consideration the world, so I believe it could open up fully new realms.

Q: Who has had the best influence/affect on you as an individual?

A: my mother and father. My father is his EPA biochemist, now a doctor assistant, and my mom is an occupational well being doctor. Each my mother and father instilled in me a love and curiosity for the pure world and gave me the liberty to discover. I want to thank them for letting me put away Lego at my very own tempo and accepting that I’ve plans to construct a pile of Lego. . “No no, do not clear up. I’ve a plan for that setup!

The Biodesign Institute and its CXFEL Labs are supported partially by the State of Arizona’s Know-how and Analysis Initiative Fund. Our funding in TRIF has enabled hands-on coaching for tens of hundreds of scholars, hundreds of scientific discoveries and patented applied sciences, and tons of of latest start-ups throughout Arizona’s universities. Publicly supported by voter approval, TRIF is a vital useful resource for rising Arizona’s financial system and offering alternatives for Arizona residents to work, be taught, and thrive.