Optics
In work that could lead to completely new devices, systems and applications in computing and telecommunications, MIT researchers are bringing the long-sought goal of "optics on a chip" one step closer to market.
In the January 2007 inaugural issue of the journal Nature Photonics, the team reports a novel way to integrate photonic circuitry on a silicon chip. Adding the power and speed of light waves to traditional electronics could achieve system performance inconceivable by electronic means alone.
Illustration of MIT's solution to polarization sensitivity, which until now prohibited most…
Assistant Professor John Howell and his Quantum Optics team at the University of Rochester have discovered a way to manipulate a light field while retaining all of the information it carries. A considerable advance in imaging technology, the new method detects subtle changes in an image over time. Using photons and atomic vapor in what is known as imaging with slow light, the new technique precisely slows the image while retaining all of its properties.
The basic setup of the experiment is a single light source (a laser), a single camera (feeding to a computer) for observation, and between…