[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Ponte_Matt.jpg” caption=”Chemistry student Matt Ponte has published an article in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. Photo by Kalai Saravanamuttu.”]If you look at a bright light for too long, you could get a headache. For undergraduate chemistry student Matt Ponte, studying white light has led him to publishing an article in an academic journal.

Just over a year ago, as a second-year undergraduate student in the Department of Chemistry, Ponte decided to broaden his horizons in the Faculty of Science Co-op and the NSERC USRA (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada/Undergraduate Student Research Award) programs. These choices led him towards discovering something new in the field of materials chemistry — and also to discovering the future path of his career.

Ponte and his then coworker Ian B. Burgess, also an NSERC USRA student, examined what happened when two beams of white light from a pair of everyday light bulbs traveled through a photosensitive material — a uniform liquid — in a small transparent glass container.

Their study was based on previous work conducted in their research group in the Department of Chemistry. This research showed that a broad beam of white light spontaneously divided itself into an ordered pattern of tiny hair-like fibers — only 80 microns (millionth of a metre) wide — as it traveled through the photosensitive medium.

Ponte and Burgess extrapolated on this research because they wanted to see what would happen when two such beams perpendicularly crossed each other's path through the medium at the exact same moment.

The results were outstanding — and beautiful. Both white light beams ran through the material as they simultaneously divided into the tiny fibers. The product was a highly ordered 3-D grid of white light. Furthermore, they found that when the light beams were turned off, the 3-D grid had been permanently etched into the medium. Ponte was able to capture this spectacle using high-resolution cameras, which measured the distribution of light intensity in the glass container.

The construction of such 3-D grids of light — also known as optical lattices — normally requires at least four carefully positioned beams of laser light. Ponte's research showed that it is possible to make 3-D light grids with only two incandescent light bulbs that emit impulsive light.

Ponte, Burgess and his research supervisor Kalai Saravanamuttu recently published this work in the Journal of Materials Chemistry, where it was also featured on the Journal cover.

Together with undergraduate student Robert Welch, Ponte has now extended this work even further and studied how very narrow beams of light behave as they travel through these 3-D lattices.

Motivated by his research experiences in the Chemistry Co-op and NSERC USRA programs, Ponte hopes to pursue graduate studies in chemistry and ultimately lead his own research group.