Caltech chip steers one light beam with another in 74 femtoseconds
A chip built at Caltech can use one beam of light to steer another to a new angle in 74 femtoseconds, according to a paper published June 22 in Nature Nanotechnology. That is roughly the time light needs to cross a human hair. Conventional methods hit a wall. Most light-steering technology excites electrons in a material, and their relaxation limits speeds to nanoseconds or picoseconds. "Steering light with light is very challenging because light typically interacts very weakly with matter," said Harry Atwater, whose Caltech lab built the device.
Engineers building faster communications networks, computing systems and sensors gain a way to redirect light. It works far faster than current methods allow.
Source: Steering Light in a Flash: New Chip Redirects Light Beams in Less Than a Trillionth of a Second (caltech.edu).
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