Researchers at King's College London have achieved
previously unseen levels of control over the travelling direction of
electromagnetic waves in waveguides. Their ground-breaking results could have
far-reaching benefits for the way light is controlled in optical waveguides and
fibres, significantly improving integration, efficiency and speed.
In a paper published today in Science, Professor Anatoly
Zayats and his team, working with collaborators from Universitat Politècnica de
València in Spain, show how their use of circularly polarised light - light
containing spinning photons (fundamental particles) - and metallic
nanostructures achieve a ‘water wheel’ effect to send light waves in a single
direction along a metal surface. Their findings are surprising because such
unidirectional waves have not been controlled in this way before. The research
has profound implications for optical communications and information processing
technologies.