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Described in the journal Nature, the Yale circuit "represents a technical breakthrough," says Columbia University mechanical-engineering professor James Hone. "It opens up a new way to make opto-mechanical switches that can reroute one optical signal using another." Hone says that such devices could be the building blocks of optical circuits. Adam Cohen, a professor of chemistry, chemical biology, and physics at Harvard, agrees--as long as making these devices proves compatible with standard semiconductor processing. The traditional approach, which involves converting the optical signal into an electrical one and back again, "slows things down and is more complicated," Cohen says.
Because the mechanical oscillation of the beam changes the way that light flows through it in a measurable way, the beams could be developed into very sensitive chemical sensors, says Hone. The Yale group has not demonstrated a chemical sensor. In theory, however, arrays of the on-chip silicon oscillators could be decorated with antibodies that bind blood proteins characteristic of diseases such as cancer. If a blood sample placed on the chip contained a small amount of the protein, it would bind to the silicon beam, changing the frequency of its oscillations--and thereby causing a measurable change in the speed of light carried through it. Other nanoscale sensors work on a similar principle, picking up differences in the flow of electrical current through oscillating silicon beams or carbon nanotubes when they bind to molecules of interest. Optical resonators might be even more sensitive, says Hone, because optical devices are "better behaved," giving clearer signals than electrical devices do.
However, such applications are many years away. The device is still in very early development in Tang's lab, where his group is refining its mechanical properties.
I believe perhaps you missed the full implication of this article...
The circuit as described is actually an inverter (an elementary logic device needed to build anything larger of any complexity), ostensibly with an "analog" transfer characteristic -- such that the original channelled signal output is fully off when the control signal is fully on, and vice versa. I.e. Control = light, channeled information = blocked; Control = dark, channeled information = available.
So in a very literal sense they are actually using the Dark Side of The Force.
Pure silicone laser processors have existed for a long time, Superman has one in his Ice Cave that his father built for him.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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Globe99
28 Comments
Headline is INCORRECT
I'm surprised that nobody has caught this yet, but this is anything but the "First light-driven nanomachine." Look at people like James Heath at Cal Tech and Fraser Stoddart (now at Northwestern) who have been working on light-driven molecular machines since the 90's. Here is an example of these types of systems. This approach has been used to create a wide variety of optically-switchable molecular machines. A review that includes more on this is here.
Where did the author get her facts on this? Who is claiming that this is the "first" light-driven nanomachine?
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