The future of optical circuitry is 3 dimensional
Metamaterial research recognised by the Optical Society of America as one of 30 most important breakthroughs
One day soon your camera phone lens could be even thinner and flatter. Satellites could be smaller. Your laptop could stay cooler and your battery last longer. Diseases could be detected earlier. All thanks to breakthroughs in topological photonics research being done by a team of researchers led by Alex Khanikaev, associate professor in the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York.
Khanikaev's photonics work in metamaterials "“ specifically in 3D optical circuitry "“ has just been recognised by the Optical Society of America as one of the 30 most important breakthroughs in the field. In fact, it has been featured on the cover of the December issue of Optics and Photonics News.
Metamaterials are materials whose structure has been changed on a nanoscopic level to allow them to have properties not found in nature. For example, glass that's as reflective as metal or metal made transparent by structuring it on a nanoscopic scale "“ which is much smaller than the wavelengths of light. Khanikaev's ultimate photonics goal: to create metamaterials that let us change how we control light.
Khanikaev says: "As the need to be smaller, faster, lighter, and yet more powerful continues to accelerate, the technology is reaching the limits of what electronics is capable of. The paradigm of how everything works must shift. Metamaterials perform better. They appear to be protected from defects and disorder. They're capable of robust guiding and control of light in three-dimensions, which puts us one step closer to the integration of topological photonics, electronic, and quantum computing. That's the future."
