Stefan Mileschin

Yep, another new thing

A team of Russian and Danish researchers have made a first-ever experimental observation of a plasmon nanojet which could have interesting computing applications.

For those who came in late, plasmon nanojets enable nanoscale focusing of light and, theoretically, allows engineers to bypass one of the fundamental limitations of the ordinary converging lens.

Tight compression of light waves is necessary to use them as signal carriers in compact devices that would work much faster than today's electronics.

The idea is that by replacing electrons in microcircuits with photons -- the massless particles of light -- the resulting devices would operate much faster.

What stops this happening is that photonic gear would be huge and to make them smaller, engineers require a way to control photons on such a small scale that the light wave itself has to be localised, squeezed into a minimum space.

Ideally, the light needs to be focused into a spot smaller than half of the original wavelength. While this feat is impossible in the classical optics due to what is known as the diffraction limit, modern research has already found several ways around it. And the newly observed plasmon nanojet is likely to become one of them.

https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardwar...g-in-computing