(July 13, 2015) University
of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have created a nanoscale device that can emit
light as powerfully as an object 10,000 times its size. It's an advance that
could have huge implications for a variety of imaging and energy applications.
In a paper published July 10, 2015 in the journal Physical
Review Letters, Zongfu Yu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer
engineering at UW-Madison, PhD student Ming Zhou, and their collaborators
describe nanoscale device that that
drastically outpaces previous technology in its ability to scatter light. They showed how a single nanoresonator can
manipulate light to cast a very large "reflection." The nanoresonator's capacity to absorb and
emit light energy is such that it can make itself—and, in applications, other
very small things—appear 10,000 times as large as its physical size.
“Making an object look much 10,000 times larger than its
physical size has lots of implications in technologies related to light,"
Yu says.
The researchers realized the advance through materials
innovation and a keen understanding of the physics of light. Much like sound,
light can resonate, amplifying itself as the surrounding environment
manipulates the physical properties of its wave energy. The researchers took
advantage of this by creating an artificial material in which the wavelength of
light is much larger than in a vacuum, which allows light waves to resonate
more powerfully.