Monday, September 08, 2014
Atomically Thin Material Opens Door for Integrated Nanophotonic Circuits
A new combination of materials can efficiently guide electricity and
light along the same tiny wire, a finding that could be a step towards
building computer chips capable of transporting digital information at
the speed of light.
Reporting today in The Optical Society's (OSA) high-impact journalOptica,
optical and material scientists at the University of Rochester and
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich describe a basic model
circuit consisting of a silver nanowire and a single-layer flake of
molybendum disulfide (MoS2).
Using a laser to excite electromagnetic waves called plasmons at the
surface of the wire, the researchers found that the MoS2 flake at the
far end of the wire generated strong light emission. Going in the other
direction, as the excited electrons relaxed, they were collected by the
wire and converted back into plasmons, which emitted light of the same
wavelength.
"We have found that there is pronounced nanoscale light-matter
interaction between plasmons and atomically thin material that can be
exploited for nanophotonic integrated circuits," said Nick Vamivakas,
assistant professor of quantum optics and quantum physics at the
University of Rochester and senior author of the paper.
For more: http://ow.ly/B67QMScientist Name, Map our Galactic Supercluster
University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomer R. Brent Tully, who recently
shared the 2014 Gruber Cosmology Prize and the 2014 Victor Ambartsumian
International Prize, has led an international team of astronomers in
defining the contours of the immense supercluster of galaxies containing
our own Milky Way. They have named the supercluster “Laniakea,” meaning
“immense heaven” in Hawaiian. The paper explaining this work is the
cover story of the September 4 issue of the prestigious journal Nature.
Galaxies are not distributed randomly throughout the universe.
Instead, they are found in groups, like our own Local Group, that
contain dozens of galaxies, and in massive clusters containing hundreds
of galaxies, all interconnected in a web of filaments in which galaxies
are strung like pearls. Where these filaments intersect, we find huge
structures, called “superclusters.” These structures are interconnected,
but they have poorly defined boundaries.
For more info: http://ow.ly/B5TrR
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)