Boston University

To help develop a handheld electron beam-pumped semiconductor laser that would be the first to operate in the ultraviolet, Boston University professor Theodore Moustakas has received a $1.5 million, two-year subcontract from DARPA. Because of the laser’s ultralow emission wavelength and compact size, it could be exploited for a wide range of applications, including identification of biological and chemical substances used in potential terror attacks, and in point-of-care chemical analysis of blood and other bodily fluids. To develop the technology, Moustakas, a member of the university’s electrical and computer engineering department, and his co-investigators will fabricate UV laser materials and component devices. They plan to make a laser structure that, when bombarded with an electron beam, produces pairs of electrons and holes (positively charged particles) that recombine and produce the UV light.