Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Space Industry and Business News .




CHIP TECH
Needle beam could eliminate signal loss in on-chip optics
by Staff Writers
Boston MA (SPX) Sep 14, 2012


Federico Capasso (left), Patrice Genevet (right), and an international team of colleagues have demonstrated a new type of tightly controlled light wave that could eliminate signal loss in on-chip optical devices. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell, SEAS Communications.)

An international, Harvard-led team of researchers have demonstrated a new type of light beam that propagates without spreading outwards, remaining very narrow and controlled along an unprecedented distance. This "needle beam," as the team calls it, could greatly reduce signal loss for on-chip optical systems and may eventually assist the development of a new class of powerful microprocessors.

Based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, CNRS, in France, the applied physicists both characterized and created this needle beam, which travels efficiently at the interface of gold and air. Their findings were published online August 31 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The needle beam arises from a special class of quasiparticles called surface plasmons, which travel in tight confinement with a metal surface. The metallic stripes that carry these surface plasmons have the potential to replace standard copper electrical interconnects in microprocessors, enabling ultrafast on-chip communications.

One of the fundamental problems that has so far hindered the development of such optical interconnects is the fact that all waves naturally spread laterally during propagation, a phenomenon known as diffraction. This reduces the portion of the signal that can actually be detected.

"We have made a major step toward solving this problem by discovering and experimentally confirming the existence of a previously overlooked solution of Maxwell's equations that govern all light phenomena," says principal investigator Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS.

"The solution is a highly localized surface plasmon wave that propagates for a long distance, approximately 80 microns in our experiments, in a straight line without any diffraction."

The so-called needle beam, the technical term for which is a cosine-Gauss plasmon beam, propagates in tight confinement with a nanostructured metal surface. Lead author Jiao Lin, a visiting postdoctoral fellow at SEAS from the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing and Technology, and coauthor Patrice Genevet, a research associate in Capasso's group, found an ingenious way to demonstrate the theorized phenomenon.

They sculpted two sets of grooves into a gold film that was plated onto the surface of a glass sheet. These tiny grooves intersect at an angle to form a metallic grating. When illuminated by a laser, the device launches two tilted, plane surface waves which interfere constructively to create the non-diffracting beam.

"Our French colleagues did a beautiful experiment, using an ultrahigh-resolution microscope to image the needle-shaped beam propagating for a long distance across the gold surface," says Genevet.

Capasso's team hopes the finding will assist the development of more energy-efficient and powerful microprocessors. Coauthors at CNRS included Jean Dellinger, Benoit Cluzel, and group leader Frederique de Fornel.

.


Related Links
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne
Center for Nanoscale Systems
Computer Chip Architecture, Technology and Manufacture
Nano Technology News From SpaceMart.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








CHIP TECH
Samsung starts to build $7bn chip plant in China
Seoul (AFP) Sept 12, 2012
South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it had started building a new $7 billion chip plant in the Chinese city of Xian - its biggest-ever investment in the country. The plant, scheduled to come on line in 2014, will produce the advanced 10-nanometre-class NAND flash memory chips used for devices such as smartphones and computers, the firm said in a statement on ground-breaking day ... read more


CHIP TECH
Nano-velcro clasps heavy metal molecules in its grips

HYLAS 2 Communications Satellite Completes In-Orbit Testing

U.S. Air Force Chooses Northrop Grumman to Demonstrate Next-Generation Air Defense Radar System

iPhone 5 not just a phone; it's a stimulus too

CHIP TECH
SES Government Solutions Awarded Custom Satellite Solutions Contract in the US

Boeing Chosen for US Government's COMSATCOM Services Acquisition Program

Intelsat General Awarded Contract in US Government's New Custom SATCOM Solutions Program

Smartphone App Can Track Objects On the Battlefield as Well as On the Sports Field

CHIP TECH
ISRO's 100th space mission blasts off, PM witnesses historic event

SES signs three satellite launches with SpaceX

S. Korea to make third rocket launch bid in October

Arianespace concurrently manages six missions with Ariane 5 and Soyuz

CHIP TECH
Countdown: a month to go to Galileo's next launch

Monitech Announces Zero-Installation Tracking System for Automotive Industry

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Complete First Launch Exercise for Next Generation GPS Satellites

Northrop Grumman to Supply Bridge Navigation Systems for Swire Group's Dry Cargo Ships

CHIP TECH
DLR and NASA announce partnership in aeronautics research

Sikorsky explores broader Polish network

Chile in talks to buy Dutch Cougar copters

Northrop Grumman to Supply Navigation System for Embraer's New KC-390 Military Aircraft

CHIP TECH
Needle beam could eliminate signal loss in on-chip optics

Samsung starts to build $7bn chip plant in China

Towards computing with water droplets - superhydrophobic droplet logic

More than 70 percent of electronic waste management is uncontrolled

CHIP TECH
More satellite launches planned for upgrading maritime monitoring

Astrium installs new terminal in Mexico to receive SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 imagery

Suomi NPP Captures Smoke Plume Images from Russian and African Fires

Remote Sensing Satellite Sends First Earth Imagery

CHIP TECH
Measuring mercury levels: Nano-velcro detects water-borne toxic metals

Indonesian lives risked on 'world's most polluted' river

Oil spill ship's officers deported from New Zealand

Chemical use inflicts mounting bill on poor countries: UN




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement