World's Smallest Optical Switch Uses a Single Atom (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: The rapid and on-going development of micro-miniature optical electronic devices is helping to usher in a new era of photonic computers and light-based memories that promise super-fast processor speeds and ultra-secure communications. However, as these components are shrunk ever further, fundamental limits to their dimensions are dictated by the wavelength of light itself. Now researchers at ETH Zurich claim to have overcome this limitation by creating both the world's smallest optical switch using a single atom, and accompanying circuitry that appears to break the rules by being smaller than the wavelength of the light that passes through it.

Comments

welcome back, bro

[BigDukeSix]

Offtopic, perhaps, but I'm looking at the front page of Slashdot. For the first time in years, no fucking political/sociological/pseudo-tech clickbait bullshit. Finally.

If this is the new boss, I'm all for it. I care a lot about politics, privacy, and economics. I come to Slashdot for other stuff.

Thanks.

Re:And since it breaks the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe instead you should be questioning whether the statement that it breaks the laws of physics... which too many news articles seem to write using intro level physics at best, or at worst just gut intuition.

Things smaller than the wavelength interact with light all the time, whether antennas that are much smaller than the wavelength they are send/receiving, or individual atoms emitting and absorbing light. There is even a whole area of research with near field microscopy. Now there are some limits to efficiency of coupling to waves of much larger size in simple situations, but often those limits are specified for linear optics cases, and get much more complex in nonlinear cases.