Caltech engineers invent light-focusing device that may lead
to applications in computing, communications, and imaging
As technology advances, it tends to shrink. From cell phones
to laptops—powered by increasingly faster and tinier processors—everything is
getting thinner and sleeker. And now light beams are getting smaller, too.
Engineers at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech) have created a device that can focus light into a point just a few
nanometers (billionths of a meter) across—an achievement they say may lead to
next-generation applications in computing, communications, and imaging.