A new combination of materials can efficiently guide
electricity and light along the same tiny wire, a finding that could be a step
towards building computer chips capable of transporting digital information at
the speed of light.
Reporting today in The Optical Society’s (OSA) high-impact
journal Optica, optical and material scientists at the University of Rochester
and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich describe a basic model
circuit consisting of a silver nanowire and a single-layer flake of molybdenum
disulfide (MoS2).