Slashdot Mirror
New Nano-Laser Created
Many sources are reporting that researchers have created the world's smallest laser since the inception of lasers almost a half-century ago. Dubbed "spasers," as an acronym for "surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," their incredibly tiny size could become a critical component for future technologies like "nanophotonic" circuitry. "Such circuits will require a laser-light source, but current lasers can't be made small enough to integrate them into electronic chips. Now researchers have overcome this obstacle, harnessing clouds of electrons called 'surface plasmons,' instead of the photons that make up light, to create the tiny spasers."
... geneticists are now working feverishly to develop the world's first nano-shark.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Awesome! I can finally get this mobile emitter working again so I can get the hell out of sick bay.
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
Optical Writeable Readable Hard drives that are Giga-giga-bakillion-kazakcipaloo-bytes and are random access/seeking - they're coming.
All this technology and Slashdot's scripts still suck.
So do they split into three parallel beams, thus covering a wider area than a single beam could along? And do they do the whole sinusoidal-oscillation thing if combined with a Wave Beam?
But I think I'll wait for the Laser Shuffle.
I bet fiber optic would make good connections between multiple chips and/or other similarly capable hardware
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I see about three revolutionary breakthroughs per day, three of which never go anywhere because of cost or something. This reminds me of those "water on mars," articles -- we've been "getting new compelling evidence for water on mars" for decades. So, really, I've started to lose interest. I'll be excited when it finally goes somewhere. Really, what gets my blood pumping is what I can see coming down the pipe -- 128gb flash drives, C++0xA, etc.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
It is a widely accepted term in the field, well known to certain physicists/chemists. But Google might help you learn something new.
someone can use this to further the idea/technologies of creating an artificial brain; use the spaser as an artificial receptors.
Enter the following in the console:
apt-get sharkswithfreakinglasers
make laser
sudo intalllaser
At this point you will get a number of incomprehensible error messages.
Spend 18 hours of time searching google discovering that though there are many different instructions out there, nothing works.
Yes, they are; and writing bogus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmon Wikipedia entries about them. /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
The tiny "pew pew pew" sounds? Hardly sounds fun to me.
Drivers are only available for minix
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
"but current lasers can't be made small enough to integrate them into electronic chips."
Yeah, except VCSELs have been around since the 80s. They are definitely small enough to integrate into an electronic chip, and they have been for quite some time.
"surface plasmons"
Really? Plasmons? Are they just making words up now?
Yeah. It's stupid: we already had the perfectly functional phrase "plasmid" to describe those.
Personally I'm holding out for them perfecting the electricity plasmid.
We have NO nano cats to use it with!
Horton Hears the Pew!
From the Wikipedia article:
"For plasmon-based electronics to be useful, an analog to the transistor, called a plasmonster, must be invented."
It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a plasmonster.
That formulation parses and functions for me.
It's a compact way of saying: ...
- Lasers were invented almost a century ago.
- Since then there has been a continuing series of inventions of progressively smaller lasers.
- And with each of these inventions the inventor and/or the media went into a hype frenzy about the latest "world's smallest laser"
- But there's something special about this one
And there is: It's the first one where the resonator (a size-limiting component) is MUCH smaller than a quarter-wavelength of the resonant frequency light.
And, as somebody who worked in a laser lab back in the late '60s and with cutting-edge semiconductors these days, I can attest that this little device is a BIG DEAL (TM).
I expect the next step - an electrically-pumped version - in a year or less. Followed by one that can be grown epitaxially on a wafer and hooked to a waveguide that's also built by stock chip manufacturing techniques. And that's the point where you switch to optics - first for getting signals on and off the chip (a BIG power eater), eventually maybe for getting signals around the chip.
Unless something BETTER comes along before then. (Which is the REAL reason most of these breakthroughs never make production.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
and there's an iPhone app floating around that does all the lasering for you for $.99
Unfortunately it was deleted from Apple Store