Directing Light in Photonics Using Nanoribbons

BuffYoda writes "BERKELEY, CA — "Another important step towards realizing the promise of lightning fast photonic technology has been taken by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley. Researchers have demonstrated that semiconductor nanoribbons, single crystals measuring tens of hundreds of microns in length, but only a few hundred or less nanometers in width and thickness (about one ten-millionth of an inch), can serve as 'waveguides' for channeling and directing the movement of light through circuitry." An interesting (though by no means unexpected or revolutionary) development in photonics, a field I consider to be of great importance to the development of extremely fast computers (this route seems to be a lot closer than the alternatives)."