6. Alex Blanchard

In this final episode of the 6 part series talking with LGBT physicists, I chat to the brand new, green-as-they-come Ph.D student, Alex Blanchard.

I met Alex a years ago at a Glasgow Frontrunners social. He's a real delight - always smiling, talented musically, and a hard working physicist working in optics.  A few notes on this week's content from Alex:

"A Quantum Cascade Laser works by having numerous quantum wells with an applied electric field, which tilts them energetically. The quantum wells have two energy levels of interest: the energy level before and after emitting the photon. The tilting effect makes the energy level of the electron in the first well after emitting the photon at the same energy as the energy level before emitting a photon in the next quantum well (see attached picture). So after emitting a photon, the electron tunnels into the next well, at the energy level before emitting another photon, where it emits another photon. With enough wells in sequence together, one electron emits numerous photons and it lases.

When discussing how the SPADs work, I neglected to mention that the SPAD has a large electric field applied across it, above the breakdown field of the material. This means that when an electron is hit by a photon, it leaves its atom, is accelerated by the field, and hits other electrons, creating a current in a normally insulating material. The current can stop by either having no more electrons which can be knocked off the atoms, or the voltage (and therefore the electric field) is reduced to a point where the electric field can no longer accelerate the electrons to a high enough speed."

Today I learned that you can use "to lase" as a verb. I guess lasers gonna lase!

Check out the band he plays in, SambaYaBamba, maybe catch them this summer.

Check out the Glasgow Frontrunners, or find your local chapter.

Find Alex online!

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Music for this episode was Mamma Mia by Austin Weber. Find his music on Spotify or Apple music.

Thanks to IOPScotland for sponsoring this episode and the 5 other episodes in this season. Check out their website for more information on IOP events all around Scotland!