Passive Optical Diode Created At Purdue University

wbr1 writes "Researchers at Purdue University have managed to create a silicon device that acts as a passive diode for infrared optical signals. From the Purdue news release: 'The diode is capable of "nonreciprocal transmission," meaning it transmits signals in only one direction, making it capable of information processing, said Minghao Qi (pronounced Chee), an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. "This one-way transmission is the most fundamental part of a logic circuit, so our diodes open the door to optical information processing," said Qi.' One of the same researchers had already (using similar technology) created a way to convert laser pulses to RF."

Comments

Is there a better article on this somewhere?

[KClaisse]

Both the summary and TFA are devoid of anything concrete on how this is actually done. It basically says what the title does, they created a diode. Telling me that light entering the opposite side doesn't make it through really doesn't tell me anything the word "diode" in the title doesn't. I'm sure the science behind this particular device is both clever and interesting but you'd never be able to tell since that information is completely missing. Reporting on stories is nice, but shouldn't journalists actually strive to make their articles contain actual information on what they are covering? You'd think a story about a new discovery would actually contain information about how it actually works (since that's the actual "new" part anyway).