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Physicists Close in on 'Superlens'

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the i-am-bender-please-insert-light dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In Oregon, physicists have developed a material for creating a real superlens that in theory could attain a one-nanometer visual resolution. The idea is to use exotic materials to create "negative" refraction of light, which literally means steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world."

53 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Aww. by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Funny

    In a conventional lens, light gets bent

    Poor light. Why is everyone so mean to it? It just wants to be loved, but everyone wants it to get bent.

    1. Re:Aww. by SUB7IME · · Score: 3, Informative

      Check the NYUD link in case of slashdotting of TFA.

  2. These would be nice! by Z-95 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could these be set up like a traditional light microscope to make a cheaper atom scanning microscope than the electron microscope? This could open an entirely new door in the study of atomic particles.

    1. Re:These would be nice! by DinZy · · Score: 5, Informative

      How can you really study atoms at the nanometer scale? Atoms are sub nanometer. The use in obsevation lies in some large molecule on large molecule action. The best use would be in making smaller features with photolithography. It may also be useful in quantum computing applications.

    2. Re:These would be nice! by theglassishalf · · Score: 5, Funny

      Large molecule on molecule action? Man, and I thought I had seen all the fetishes.

      -Daniel

      --
      Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
    3. Re:These would be nice! by Teclis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      FYI. Scanning tunneling electron microscopes do get atomic resolution. Scanning electron microscopes do not.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_mi croscope

      --
      Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
    4. Re:These would be nice! by dillee1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not necessarily. All normal material slow down light, and the difference in C at medium interface cause light to bend. The new material that cause light to bend the other way probably means C is higher than C(vacuum). Currently only exotic material like BEC has these properties. These exotic materials are not easy to made/maintain, so are microscope using them.
      BTW TFA has no information about what material/technology does this use. Anyone got links?

    5. Re:These would be nice! by phliar · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The new material that cause light to bend the other way probably means C is higher than C(vacuum).
      No, c is the absolute limit. Nothing -- not even light -- can go faster than c. (It's lower-case c.) Perhaps you're confused about phase velocity. (Also, if it were possible that the velocity of light in this material were higher than c, then its refractive index would be less than one, but never negative.)

      I don't know what the original research actually was, but this article is crap. I can't understand what "steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world" is supposed to mean. What "direction" is this "steering" found in the real world? If he means refraction, it's easiest to think of it as light wanting to bend towards the medium in which it moves slower. (Nothing mysterious about it either -- imagine on the floor you have two regions, one hardwood and one carpet. Take apart a toy so you have two wheels on an axle, and roll it towards the wood/carpet border, but at an angle. As it crosses, it will turn towards the carpet.)

      So, since (group) velocity > c is not possible, does he mean that he is making light bend away from the medium in which it moves slower? In other words, Einstein and everyone after him was just full of crap?

      --
      Unlimited growth == Cancer.
    6. Re:These would be nice! by lgw · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, there's a (theoretical) way for light to move faster than 'c' (and not just the phase velocity). Light can (theoretically) move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, though not by much, between closely-spaced conducting plates. The Casimir Effect effectively reduces the impedance of vacuum below that of "naturally occuring" vacuum. Of course, if true, this would change anything about relativity, it would just mean we've calibrated 'c' imprecisely.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    7. Re:These would be nice! by Blue+Mushroom · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, according to Richard Feynman, light does have the ability to go faster than the speed of light. I'm not sure about the specifics, but for at least some events, there is a an established probability that light will travel between two points in less time than it would take to travel at c. However, at macro scale distances, small variations in the speed of light all cancel out. I read this in Feynman's book QED, which stands for quantum electrodynamics. I highly recommend QED to any non-physicist/non-math-major who wants to gain a better intuitive understanding of the bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

      --

      "Humanity lives and dies by its capabilities of communication, or lack thereof."

    8. Re:These would be nice! by Henk+Postma · · Score: 2

      In fact, you should check out this design for a $100 dollar STM. Build it yourself, and watch the atoms on your tabletop. Quite cool http://www.geocities.com/spm_stm/Project.html

  3. They've been around by gardyloo · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not sure about the resolution of the previous "negative refractive" lenses, but these things have been around for a few years. Pendry (I think) was one of the first to come up with the split-ring "metamaterial" and show that it can work, but the concept for these things has been around since Veselago came up with them, oh, about 40 years ago. People (including my advisor) have recently been proposing or demonstrating "negative refraction" acoustical materiaals, too. As far as I can make out from the summary, the OSU work is notable because this lens might work with optical frequencies, rather than in the radio and microwave regime, as previous optical metamaterials had to do.

        Incidentally, people will find better information by searching for "left-handed" and "metamaterial" rather than "negative index" on the various sites.

    1. Re:They've been around by WaterBreath · · Score: 2, Informative
      Check out the description, and particularly the JPEG images, linked from this site: http://physics.ucsd.edu/lhmedia/whatis.html

      The blue lines represent the path taken by light. The red lines represent the surface of the material.

      The MPEGs might be worthwhile as well. I couldn't take the time to view them because of my dog-slow web access here at work.

      And to clarify on the importance of these developments... No, left-handed materials are not really "new" in either theory or in practical use. What is new is materials that are left-handed for light in the visible spectrum. Recall that index of refraction is dependent on wavelength (or frequency, take your pick). To get left-handed material, you need two rare scenarios to occur at once: one electrical and one magnetic, and it has been more difficult to create this situation with some wavelengths (such as visible light) than with others (such as microwaves).

      I believe they have taken to being called "metamaterials" because we need to "build" custom crystal structures tailored for our needs, and they don't tend to grow in "normal" ways.

  4. Negative Refraction by HateBreeder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought you can get negative refraction, when an electromagnetic wave passes through a "Metamaterial" i.e. One with Negative Permittivity and Permeability.

    (for instnace, in a dispersive plasma cloud)

    --
    Sigs are for the weak.
    1. Re:Negative Refraction by bw_bur · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not quite the first time. Zhang's group in Berkeley published a paper in spring last year (Science 308, 534-537) describing experiments on the silver superlens, which works at optical frequencies. There have been other similar experiments since then.

  5. So what is this non-natural world? by Flying+pig · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I hate to say this (well, actually, I don't, I love to be pedantic like this) but if a real lens can be made to behave like this, then its properties are part of the "natural world". We just haven't experienced it before.

    Anybody who has ever done a university course on optics and so has come across phenomena like double refraction, which is truly weird the first time you see it, will know that there are plenty of strange things in optics. But that doesn't make them unnatural.

    --
    Pining for the fjords
    1. Re:So what is this non-natural world? by Vellmont · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And humans live outside nature? Everything is part of nature. I think this is was the original post was trying to convey. The idea that humans exist outside of nature only leads to poor conclusions.

      --
      AccountKiller
    2. Re:So what is this non-natural world? by Chrispy1000000+the+2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I prefer waiting for an organism that evolves such that it's waste product is an Ferrari.

      --
      Sig
    3. Re:So what is this non-natural world? by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's what I said. :)

      KFG

    4. Re:So what is this non-natural world? by jcorgan · · Score: 2, Insightful
      In this case, they're doing something that makes it bend in a way that it doesn't naturally do without our intervention.

      Since when are we not part of the natural world?

      --
      Babies are cute because they have to be.
  6. What about zone plates? by agm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I always thought that zone plates ("lenses" that use diffraction instead of refraction) give a higher degree of accuracy a lower wavelengths. Zone plates are often used where a traditional lens is opaque to certain wavelengths outside of the visible spectrum.

    1. Re:What about zone plates? by imsabbel · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with zone plates are:
      - INSANE chromatic abberation (linear z-dispersion with wavelenght)
      - Multiple orders of refraction (the spot that has the 1st order in focus also shows the higher orders unfocused, so the effective spot is MUCH larger)
      - VERY low efficiency (talk about 1/100ths of the photons to actually get where they are supposed to)

      They are nice were there is nothing else available (or possible because of beamline restrictions, like when there is no space for glancing angle mirrors &co), but sadly they arent that good...

      --
      HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  7. E=MC^2, yo. by PopeOptimusPrime · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In a conventional lens where refraction in 'positive', the light is bent because as it enters the lens it slows down.

    Does this mean that in this 'superlens' light will speed up as it enters, traveling faster than the established speed of light?

    1. Re:E=MC^2, yo. by wills4223 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes in fact the light is going faster then the speed of light in space however the laws of relativity still hold because information still can't be transmitted faster then c.

    2. Re:E=MC^2, yo. by howlingmadhowie · · Score: 2, Insightful
      as far as i remember, materials in which the index of refraction is below 1 are quite common, metals show this behaviour with high frequency light. feynmann explained it quite nicely back in 1960, so it must have been common knowledge back then. maybe the new thing is finding materials to get this to work with visible light?

      the method to finding how light travels which i've always used is to build wavefronts each c/(f*n) apart and see what happens (of course, you have to build a lot of wavefronts, but every classical optical problem can be solved this way, as it closely mirrors what the maxwell laws mean). having a refractive index of less than one does not make the light move faster, just the wavefront for a wave with a stable frequency. if you change the frequency, amplitude, fourier-thingy, whatever of the wave, the change in the wavefronts won't move faster than the speed of light, so no information can be conducted. as said, feynmann explained this clearly in the (first volume?) of his lectures, but i imagine everybody here has read them...

      what a negative index of refraction could possibly mean is beyond me. if you choose snell's law to define the index of refraction then you get in trouble here (v = c/n therefore the speed of the wavefront is negative?). i imagine there's another more general definition of n which i don't know. anybody here have an idea?

      howie

    3. Re:E=MC^2, yo. by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

      feynmann explained this clearly in the (first volume?) of his lectures, i imagine everybody here has read them...

      Dude, most people here don't even read TFAs.

      KFG

    4. Re:E=MC^2, yo. by the+ed+menace · · Score: 2, Informative

      The effect is largey attributed to Pendry. It was very contentious in the physics community until last year, when it was generally accepted that the eminescent wave was the process by which the light travelled (otherwise you have supraluminal propagation.)

      The ramifications of this technology are very large, not just for the optical realm, but for other frequencies also.

  8. Not lenses - diffraction compensators! by johst · · Score: 5, Informative

    Being a grad student in these kind of things (optics) I just want to clarify that these super-"lenses" do not behave at all like normal lenses. Most importantly, it is impossible to obtain magnification, the image will always be exactly the same size as the object. So it's not really fair to think about them as "lenses".

    A very similar thing is dispersion compensation in fiber-optical communications where the dispersion of one fiber is compensated in another with dispersion of opposite sign. This way, a signal can go through the two fibers without being distorted by the chromatic dispersion. Dispersion and diffraction (i.e. free space light propagation)are mathematically virtually the same thing, and the negative-index material is equivalent to having a fiber with dispersion of the opposite sign. So perhaps it's more right to think about the super.lenses as "diffraction-compensators"?

    1. Re:Not lenses - diffraction compensators! by johst · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know of any experiments with "real" negative-index-materials. The material in these "lenses" has a positive index, but since they have a periodic structure with a period close to the wavelength of the light they behave as being negative-index. These meta-materials are often called "Photonic crystals". The effect of the negative index is that rays are bent "the wrong way" such that rays from a single point refocus at the same distance within the crystal and hence create the 1:1 image. It's very much like a grating, only a very complicated 2D or 3D grating.

      Now I'm getting into deep waters, but I don't think that you get super-resolution (better than the wavelength of the light) unless image is close enough to be within region where the evanescent waves still exist.

    2. Re:Not lenses - diffraction compensators! by bw_bur · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yes, you can still build a magnifying lens out of a negative index material. However, a thin flat sheet of this material is already a "superlens"; it doesn't magnify, but produces (in theory at least) a perfect image, with no loss in resolution. Even the near-field (evanescent, exponentially-decaying) components are restored and focused.

      Of course, in reality, the resolution is limited by absorption and the length-scale of the artificial structures.

      Light doesn't go faster than c in these materials... see some of my other posts on this...

  9. Is that really possible? by timerider · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I mean, how do you get 1nm visual resolution, when the wavelength of visual light ranges from 400-800 nm?

    1. Re:Is that really possible? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's with your attachment to the visual spectrum?

      Think outside the box, dude!

    2. Re:Is that really possible? by toQDuj · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, in a technique unrelated to these special lenses, there is SNOM, or Scanning (Probe) Near-Optical Microscopy, in which an AFM-tip is used through which UV light can be measured (using a fiber). Put a UV source underneath your sample, and use the AFM tip to record an optical image.
      The trick is, that the AFM tip is very close to the surface, much closer than the UV wavelength. Thereby the lightwaves to not have the pathlength to interfere and cancel out, and you can get optical microscopy images with a resolution of about 1/10th the wavelength of the used source.

      B.

      --
      Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
    3. Re:Is that really possible? by Excors · · Score: 5, Informative

      I remember something about this from Physics World, around five months ago. That article reports experiments in which a resolution of a quarter of the wavelength was achieved.
      As far as I can tell, the idea is that diffraction doesn't work quite how it's taught in classrooms: there is a standard "far-field" portion, which is limited to a resolution equal to the wavelength of the light; but there is also a "near-field" portion, which "contains all of the sub-wavelength spatial details about an object, but ... decays quickly as a function of distance from the object". A lens with a refractive index of -1 causes an exponential increase in the near-field waves as they pass through the superlens, and so the information can be more easily recovered, giving an image with better resolution than if only the far-field light was used.
      The object, lens and image all have to be located within the near-field, less than one wavelength in size, else the waves decay too much - that limits the practical applications, but it could apparently be useful for the optical storage industry.

  10. How would that look? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, if you would fill a pool with a fluid with negative refraction, and then would go swimming, how would that look to someone ouside the pool? (Beside funny and quite stupid ...)

  11. Its even stranger... by imsabbel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Light gets faster if the refraction index is between 0 and 1. For example x-rays in most forms of condensed matter.
    A negative index of refraction would strickly speaking mean the photons are moving backwards when entering...

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
    1. Re:Its even stranger... by bw_bur · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is an element of truth in this. The group velocity and the phase velocity are in opposite directions. The group velocity (which determines the flow of energy, and the direction and speed of information transfer -- and photons) would point away from the boundary, while the phase velocity points towards the boundary.

      It should also be noted that these negative index materials rely on resonant behaviour, and are consequently highly dispersive.

  12. Major advance possible. by Belseth · · Score: 5, Funny
    In Oregon, physicists have developed a material for creating a real superlens that in theory could attain a one-nanometer visual resolution.

    Finally there'll be a way to read all the fine print in service contracts!

  13. Re:The real question is by 246o1 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Of course the real question is: Will this lens let us look into the past? And if so will tom cruise destroy it for us before the bad guys win?
    I think you meant "the future" and "ben affleck"
    --
    Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
  14. As a Lisp programmer by boomgopher · · Score: 5, Funny


    As a Lisp programmer, I chuckle at the artificial distinction between light, lenses, and refraction.



    --
    Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
  15. I'm a Physics God by TheoMurpse · · Score: 4, Funny

    The idea is to use exotic materials to create "negative" refraction of light, which literally means steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world.

    I have one of those! I call it a *hand quotes* mirror *hand quotes*.

  16. Better links by ortholattice · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The original press release (no ads): http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Dec0 5/optics.htm

    The actual paper (PDF file): http://www.physics.oregonstate.edu/~vpodolsk/repri nts.pdf/resolut.apl2005.pdf

  17. More information about their work by philbert2.71828 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can find more information about this research at Podolskiy's web page. It looks like the web site has some good information, including Java applets showing how a superlens should work. Incidently, I am an undergrad physics student at OSU and I talked to Poldolskiy about doing some research for him last summer, but it didn't work out. It's nice to see he got something published on this though - he was explaining it to me last year but I can't remember much of it now.

  18. Damn by EBFoxbat · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just lost my 13.2 tb negative refraction DVD. Man, it was such a good Windows rebuild. Seriously though, this could be a spiffy application to optical drives... errr negative optical drives.

  19. New L series lens in the works? by reub2000 · · Score: 2, Funny

    So could we be seeing a new Canon L series lens being made with these?

  20. Re:mirror by cablepokerface · · Score: 3, Funny

    mirror

    no, a lens! RTFA!

  21. mandatory Star Trek quote by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "Captain, I canna change the laws of Physics!"

    It would be wonderful if this super lens stuff was correctly explained in the article, BUT:

    • I seem to recall light waves are one heck of a lot longer than a nanometer, like hundreds of times. Viewed as a particle, a photon is similarly huge. To put it into Enquirer-speak: You can't peek into the eye of a needle by throwing bowling balls at it.
    • Regular lenses work by slowing down light. Is it likely that you can speed up light?
    • One nanometer wavelength "light" is somewhere in the gamma-ray area. It's really hard to bend these. Even if you could, most target materials are semi-transparent at these wavelengths. Worse yet, that energy of photon is likely to disrupt whatever it's hitting. Not good for viewing things unless you get off on watching a lot of microscopic Terminator-style explosions.
    • I seem to recall that a lens's resolving power is proportional to the lens width in wavelengths. How wide are these superlenses, and is that wide enough for nanometer resolution?
    • If you did get that level of resolution, which seems mighty doubtful, what is the depth-of-field or width of field? It's not much fun looking through a drinking straw at really out-of-focus blobs.
    • There are already a whole host of super-microscopes of the electron scanning and tunneling varieties.

    All those caveats aside, it does soound really exciting!

    1. Re:mandatory Star Trek quote by bucky0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Regular lenses work by slowing down light. Is it likely that you can speed up light?

      The absolute value of the index is stil 1 which means that the light is still slower than C, it's just bent in the opposite direction when it hits the interface. speed in media = index of refraction * speed of light in vacum

      ahh, I would post more, but I'm late for lunch. I'll be around later.

      --

      -Bucky
    2. Re:mandatory Star Trek quote by cnettel · · Score: 3, Informative
      A photon is huge only in the sense that its location is unpredictable along the axis of movement (when the wave-length is well defined, as the wave length is directly related to momentum and Heisenberg applies to each dimension). It is not huge in the sense "can't get into an atom", as you can excite or ionize inner electrons with "just" UV or gamma, which are still far above the distance between atoms in a molecule (which is in the same order of magnitude as 0.1 Nm; 1 Ångström).

      You can't peek into the eye of a needle by throwing bowling balls at it, but you can very well thread a long thread through it, even if the volyme of the thread is far larger than the volume of the eye of the needle. You just need a coherent light source exactly perpendicular to the surface. Then your only problem is diffraction, which is already better mentioned by other posts.

  22. So are we going to see this in UV? by arodland · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If this can be applied to photolithography, we should be getting chips with feature sizes smaller than we can even deal with -- for the moment, anyway. I, for one, welcome our new 8-core, 1nm overlords.

  23. Where's the beef? by Clueless+Nick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What does the article have to offer on real details? Apart from saying that the scientists have "worked out an optimal configuration" for use with a "superlens", which provides "negative refraction", thus "maximizing the resolution" of the superlens concept, where is the real information I would like to set my teeth on?

    There is no simple diagram showing how superlenses work. If they are bending light unnaturally, i.e. the other way, does this mean you will create convex lenses to see better detail?

    What's a lay reader supposed to understand from this? The article makes broad statements, and some misstatements. Consider this: ""In a conventional lens, light gets bent as it moves through a curved material, such as glass". Doesn't light get bent as it passes through materials having different densities/refractive indices, regardless of the surface being flat or curved?

    Anyway, it is from somebody's blog anyway, and seems to have been posted here to fish for funny comments, IMHO.

    --
    Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
  24. Hyperbole Anyone? by E++99 · · Score: 2, Funny
    "...an extraordinary optical device that would bend light the opposite direction of that done by any natural material"

    "...literally means steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world."
    The article makes it abundantly clear that this is not a natural device, but a supernatural device. They are therefore inconsistent in calling these clever people scientists, when they are clealy witch-doctors or magicians (in the Old Testament sense, not in the David Copperfield sense).
  25. negative index of refraction: a stick picture by prurientknave · · Score: 2, Informative

    normal refraction

    light ray
    __\__|
    ___\_|
    ----------- refractive material boundary
    _____|\
    _____|_\
          normal
    obviously i can't tilt slashes any more =) so this is an example of a refractive index of 1

    negative index of refraction

    light ray
    _\__|
    __\_|
    ----------- refractive material boundary
    __/_|
    _/__|
          normal

    refractive index of -1

    This is weird so the hullabaloo