INDUSTRY NEWS

Seeing the light

Thin-film experiments conducted both on Earth and on the space shuttle may lead to breakthroughs in semiconductor manufacturing, NASA says. Researchers at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, are working with optical films that could replace traditional circuits and wires.

NASA Photo—Dennis Olive

In the top photo, research scientist Donald Frazier shines a UV blue laser through a quartz window into a special mix of chemicals to create a polymer film on the inside of the quartz. The chemicals respond to the laser light and cling to the glass, forming an optical film. Frazier and his colleague Mark Paley developed the process in the center's Space Sciences Laboratory. On the space shuttle, Frazier led a team of scientists in growing optical thin films with fewer impurities than those grown on Earth, NASA says. Once imprinted with circuit lines, the quartz surfaces could be used to make lightweight, compact optical components. Such components could improve pattern recognition, according to the space agency. In the photo below, Hossin Abdeldayem, a physicist at the center, demonstrates a laser as part of a pattern-recognition optical system. Working at the speed of light, an optical-based computer could create artificial intelligence systems with advanced learning capability, NASA speculates.

NASA Photo—Doug Stoffer

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