A new nanophotonic waveguide Available to Purchase

A new nanophotonic waveguide has been proposed. If photonics is to keep up with electronics in the race to produce smaller, faster circuitry that is less power-hungry, then photon manipulation will have to be carried out on scales of space, time, and energy that are hundreds or thousands of times smaller than currently possible. Physicists at MIT have now figured out how to reduce all three parameters (space, time, and energy consumption) simultaneously in a new waveguide design. To process a photonic signal, the researchers would convert it into surface plasmons that are supported on the interface between a metal substrate and a corrugated layer of dielectric material. The plasmons can have a propagation wavelength much smaller than the free-space optical wavelength, thereby shrinking the spatial dimension. Such plasmons are also very slow electromagnetic waves, typified by a low operational energy. Finally, when several dielectric layers are stacked, slow plasmon...