Mohammad Khan
Delaware State University, DE·Engineering
The ocean and the atmosphere constantly trade gases at the sea surface, and this exchange plays a part in climate change. Measuring the small amounts of gases dissolved in seawater, called trace gases, is therefore key to understanding how oceans and climate interact.
- Fields
Engineering
Physics
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
photonics
optical sensing
mid-infrared spectroscopy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Develop a mid-infrared sensing technique that pairs hollow-core optical fibers with mid-infrared lasers to detect trace gases dissolved in water by how they absorb infrared light.
- Design the hollow-core fiber sensors to measure dissolved gases directly in the water, without the permeation membranes that current methods need to balance gas across the air-liquid boundary.
- Shrink the sensors into small devices that can be deployed upstream, downstream, inshore, and offshore to monitor trace gases at the air-water interface.
- Build toward an adaptable marine sensor network that delivers detailed, real-time data on dissolved trace gases where the ocean meets the atmosphere.
More about the research
Current sensors usually need a permeation membrane, a thin barrier that lets dissolved gas pass into a measurement chamber until gas levels on both sides balance. This step is a major limitation. It makes it hard to collect detailed, real-time data across many locations.
Why it matters
Small, membrane-free sensors for dissolved gases could give ocean and climate scientists denser, real-time data on how the sea exchanges gases with the air. This could improve understanding of the ocean's role in climate change. Networks of these sensors in rivers, coastal waters, and offshore could support environmental monitoring and the growing field of ocean-sensing technology.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Amir Safavi-Naeini
Stanford University, CA·Engineering
Design and fabricate multilayer oxide-clad thin-film lithium niobate waveguides and resonators with low loss, high nonlinearity and low sensitivity to fabrication imperfections.
Thomas Weinacht
Stony Brook University, NY·Physics
Generate octave-spanning ultra-broadband laser pulses through self-phase modulation in stretched hollow-core fibers, so the pulses are short enough to follow electron and nuclear motion in real time.
Mark Warner
University of Washington, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Place nitrous oxide (N2O) measurements from several GO-SHIP ocean sections on a common calibration scale, merge them with hydrographic data, and release them publicly.
The school
Delaware State University: 2 labs on PI Pages, $44M a year on research, 42 research doctorates a year.
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