Steering Light in a Flash: New Chip Redirects Light Beams in Less Than a Trillionth of a Second
Caltech researchers have developed a photonic chip capable of steering light beams in just 74 femtoseconds using optical meta-surfaces. This technology bypasses the speed limitations of traditional electronic-based light modulation, offering potential for faster computing and communications.
Why it matters
This breakthrough could lead to significantly faster data transmission and more efficient optical computing systems by overcoming the speed bottlenecks inherent in current electronic-based light steering.
Light can carry enormous amounts of information at extreme speeds, making photonic technologies promising for the development of faster communications, more powerful computing systems, and more sensitive sensors. But for light to be useful for these purposes, engineers need to be able to control where it goes and redirect it quickly. A new device built by Caltech researchers uses a beam of light to steer another to a different angle in just 74 femtoseconds (74 quadrillionths of a second). That’s about the time it takes light to travel the width of a human hair.
The article is a technical report on a scientific advancement with no political or social bias.
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