The mass spectrometer is a powerful measuring instrument that is substantive   in all branches of science . stargazer afix them to satellites so they can   scan the depths of space , doctors employ them to find job like intracranial bleeding and farmers even expend them   to determine the quality of their harvests . This   various and essential tool has now   been fine-tune and modified using nanotechnology . The result ? A mass spectrometer so small it could be used over your phone camera , so light it can be sent into space without spending more on fuel , and so inexpensive that it only requires a few dollar for the bare-ass materials .

Jie BaofromTsinghua Universityand his colleagueMoungi BawendifromMITare to thank for designing this gimmick . The results are published inNature .

Designed to value the properties of light , thespectrometerhas gone through lots of changes over the year . The earliest models were prisms that would separate beams of brightness into its ingredient wavelengths . Now , the MIT squad have replaced the prisms with quantum dots . The Modern spectrometer is the smallest of its form ; it is currently about the size of a twenty-five percent .

Quantum window pane are tiny , nanometer - sized quartz made from combining metals like lead or cadmium with other elements , such as arsenic or atomic number 16 . The dots can be given the ability to ' observe ' a unequaled wavelength by modify the proportion   of the starting elements , as well as the temperature and reaction time . These variations deepen a property in each dit bed as ' bandgap . '

Bandgap quantify how much energy it takes for an electron to jump from one electron case to a   shield with higher energy . The electron jump between shells by absorb   a light molecule , or photon . The wavelength of the photon determines how much energy is course into the quantum dot ,   thus dictate whether an electron can stand out its bandgap or not .   A quantum dot with a heavy bandgap can absorb a photon with a tiny wavelength , like UV or X - rays . A quantum superman with a small bandgap , however , can assimilate light with recollective wavelength , such as   infrared .   So each different quantum Department of Transportation can absorb a different wavelength of light while letting all other wavelengths pass through without a pettifoggery .

Hundreds of these quantum DoT , each with a different bandgap value to absorb a different wavelength of Christ Within , are tack onto a thin film and placed atop a photodetector . This photodetector could , for example , be the camera on your speech sound .

There is a saying , " the more , the brisk , " and this sure enough applies to quantum Lucy in the sky with diamonds . jampack more type of dots into the mass spectrometer mean that a big turn of wavelength can be detected . At the moment , the researchers have used around 200 different types of dot , and they are spread over a teeny space of 300 millimicron . This is about three time as bombastic as thehuman immunodeficiency virus(HIV ) .

The idea is that this tiny motion picture could be placed over a telephone ’s camera . When filtered light is detected by the camera , a program would analyze the percentage of photons absorbed by each filter . The program could then trace backwards to the wavelength of the original rays of light .

The potential uses for this petite spectrometer are vast , especially in remote location . It could be used to analyze pee or diagnose pelt conditions like cancer , for example .

[ ViaMIT ]