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Electrum Laboratory and Albanova Nanofabrication Facility are the two laboratories operated within the KTH node of Myfab – the Swedish research infrastructure for micro- and nanofabrication.

In Kista the Electrum Laboratory with a 1300 m2 cleanroom area and 1500 m2 additional laboratories is outstanding for fabrication and characterization in the nano and micro scale, supporting the whole chain from education, research and development, to prototyping and production.

At KTH Campus the Albanova Nanofabrication Facility has a 285 m2 cleanroom and 60 m2 additional laboratories. With focus on direct writing technology, the Albanova Nanolab is a flexible resource for basic research requiring nanofabrication and nanocharacterization with a wide variety of materials and substrate.

Highlights

Important component in the search for Earth-like planets

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Eva Hellberg
/ Categories: Myfab, Myfab Uppsala

hands in gloves holds small device

A new technique for reducing light interference during telescope observations enables imaging of Earth-like planets in nearby solar systems. The method has shown promising results in studies by an international team of astronomers and physicists, including researchers from Uppsala University.

Because of current technical limitations, it has been difficult to image exoplanets, i.e., planets outside of our solar system. Those images we do have are in most cases giant planets, much larger than Jupiter, which orbit very young stars. Often, these planets are also far from the habitable zone, where liquid water is found on the planet surface and creates the conditions for life.

One way to discover Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around stars similar to our sun in both size and age is to observe the sky in the infrared. These types of planets shine brightest at these wavelengths. But one problem is that both the atmosphere and the actual telescope emit infrared light, causing interference.

A new system has been developed to enable capturing images of smaller exoplanets by observing them over long periods, about 100 hours of observation time, in the middle of the infrared spectrum. The system has been used at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESA) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and has attained unmatched sensitivity using a diamond coronagraph that was produced at Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University.

Coronagraphs are used to reduced blinding light from a star and, in this way, accentuate the weaker light from any planets orbiting it.

The study is part of Breakthrough Initiatives, a global space science programme searching for Earth-like planets around nearby stars.

“The method could, in a best case scenario, capture images of planets about 3 times the diameter of Earth in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A. That is equivalent to an improvement by a factor of 10 compared to existing systems for direct observations,” says Mikael Karlsson, the head of the research team within diamond optics at Uppsala University.

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