Optical Computing

In a step towards photonic computers millions of times faster than today's models, engineers at the University of Utah claim to have developed the world's smallest photonic beam-splitter

Physics

World's smallest beamsplitter paves way toward computing at the speed of light

Photonic CPUs could potentially process information at the speed of light – millions of times faster than standard computers available today. University of Utah engineers have moved that possibility one step closer with the claimed creation of the world's smallest silicon photonics beamsplitter

Figure of a plasmonic metasurface hologram of the word "PURDUE" that is about the width of a human hair (Image: Xingjie Ni, Birck Nanotechnology Center)

Science

Fabricated nanoantennas used to produce high-resolution holograms

Instead of storing a 3D image in a photographic plate, researchers at Purdue University have developed a novel hologram which stores a 3D image in a thin gold film containing thousands of V-shaped nanoantennas, shrinking the hologram and enabling a host of new applications.

In the anti-laser, incoming light waves are trapped in a cavity where they bounce back and forth until they are eventually absorbed (Image: Yidong Chong/Yale University)

Science

World's first anti-laser demonstrated

Scientists have demonstrated the world's first anti-laser, that absorbs almost 100 percent of light beams that are shone into it.

Experimental setup for THz-pump and optical-probe measurements used by the researchers

Science

‘Terahertz’ speed signal processor an important step for optical computing

Physicists have discovered a way to use a gallium arsenide nanodevice as a signal processor at “terahertz” speeds that could help end the electron and wires bottleneck for optical communications and computing.