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New Optomechanical Crystal Allows Confinement of Light and Sound
PBH writes "Physicists and engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a nanoscale crystal that traps both light and sound. The interaction of light quanta (photons) and sound quanta (phomons) are so strong that they produce significant mechanical vibrations. 'Indeed, Painter points out, the interactions between sound and light in this device—dubbed an optomechanical crystal—can result in mechanical vibrations with frequencies as high as tens of gigahertz, or 10 billion cycles per second. Being able to achieve such frequencies, he explains, gives these devices the ability to send large amounts of information, and opens up a wide array of potential applications—everything from lightwave communication systems to biosensors capable of detecting (or weighing) a single macromolecule. It could also, Painter says, be used as a research tool by scientists studying nanomechanics. "These structures would give a mass sensitivity that would rival conventional nanoelectromechanical systems because light in these structures is more sensitive to motion than a conventional electrical system is."'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon
A crystal that captures light and sound...? Wouldn't that be called a DVD?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
They can aid in transmitting it in "HD 4X" faster than it takes someone to realize the mistake of clicking a tinyurl.
Dangerous stuff we have here.. better ban it.
Well, thank goodness. I can never keep that stuff in the bowl; maybe now that the scattering mechanism is understood, I can get a full serving of noodles.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm not sure what applications extremely high frequency vibrations have, but I'm thinking that this could be used to make better quality audio speakers, microphones, ultrasound, sonar, etc.
If you have such fine control over vibrations, perhaps you could create fancier waveforms, for sound that has weird properties. Phased array sonar?
Constructive and destructive interference?
I own a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones that I enjoy, so maybe that tech would be enhanced by these crystals. Or perhaps you could make sonic weapons by building up massive disruptor wave pulses
I'm trying to think of what high frequency synchrotron radiation makes possible through EM. The extremly short wavelengths allow imaging of very tiny objects like molecules. So would extremely short mechanical wavelengths allow extremely fine sonic imaging of... individual cells?
"New Optomechanical Crystal Allows Confinement of Light and Sound"
Oddly enough they named it RIAA.
Well the confined optical mode is 200THz so an RF EM mode wouldn't be confined and therefore wouldn't overlap effectively with the vibronic modes in the nano-structure. I also really doubt that inducing vibrations in the nano-structure would generate an optical (or other EM) field. It's probably a one way coupling given that it's driven by photon pressure and not any net charge in the nano-beam.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
"It really annoys me when "prestigious" university professors publish crap like this"
It really annoys nobodies post crap like that. Raman scattering typically occurs when photons scatter off a molecule or crystal thereby exciting a phonon (a vibration) in the internal structure of the molecule/crystal. This is Raman scattering that excites a nano-structure that is engineered into the beam by the researchers. It is similar to regular Raman scattering, but is an engineered process at this point. It's an extremely exciting result!
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
There are all sorts of things that have been theoretically known of for quite some time. Still, if you come up with a new, reliable engineering application with major economic consequences, for the Edison or Peltier effects, Superconductivity, Raleigh scattering, or Frame Dragging, that's quite an accomplishment. Hell, if someone finds a genuinely new application for Archimedes model of a waterscrew as an inclined plane wrapped around a cylender, or Thag's heat from rubbing two sticks together theorem, it's still worth respect.
Who is John Cabal?