Researchers have solved one of the significant remaining challenges with photonic “metamaterials,” discovering a way to prevent the loss of light as it passes through these materials, and opening the door to many important new optical, electronic and communication technologies.

The advance, made by scientists from Oregon State University and Norfolk State University, was just published in Physical Review Letters.

“The ability to compensate for optical loss is a very large step forward for the whole field of active plasmonics,” said Viktor Podolskiy, an OSU assistant professor of physics. “Some of the most important potential applications in this field have been held back by this problem.”

These “metamaterials,” which gain their properties from their structure rather than directly from their composition, have been seen as a key to a possible “super lens” that would have an extraordinary level of resolution and be able to “see” things the size of a nanometer – a human hair is 100,000 nanometers wide.

They could also be important in machine visions systems, electronics manufacturing, computers limited only by the speed of light, and a range of new communications concepts. A “cloaking device” to hide objects, although not exactly of the type made famous by Star Trek, is also a possibility.


http://www.physorg.com/news147542890.html