Physicists Close in on 'Superlens'

An anonymous reader writes "In Oregon, physicists have developed a material for creating a real superlens that in theory could attain a one-nanometer visual resolution. The idea is to use exotic materials to create "negative" refraction of light, which literally means steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world."

So what is this non-natural world?

[Flying pig]

I hate to say this (well, actually, I don't, I love to be pedantic like this) but if a real lens can be made to behave like this, then its properties are part of the "natural world". We just haven't experienced it before.

Anybody who has ever done a university course on optics and so has come across phenomena like double refraction, which is truly weird the first time you see it, will know that there are plenty of strange things in optics. But that doesn't make them unnatural.

Re:So what is this non-natural world?

[DigitalReality]

"natural world" refers to light found naturally, without artificial generation or alteration. In this case, they're doing something that makes it bend in a way that it doesn't naturally do without our intervention.

Re:Is that really possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with your attachment to the visual spectrum?

Think outside the box, dude!

Re:The real question is

[246o1]

Of course the real question is: Will this lens let us look into the past? And if so will tom cruise destroy it for us before the bad guys win?

I think you meant "the future" and "ben affleck"

Re:E=MC^2, yo.

[howlingmadhowie]

as far as i remember, materials in which the index of refraction is below 1 are quite common, metals show this behaviour with high frequency light. feynmann explained it quite nicely back in 1960, so it must have been common knowledge back then. maybe the new thing is finding materials to get this to work with visible light?

the method to finding how light travels which i've always used is to build wavefronts each c/(f*n) apart and see what happens (of course, you have to build a lot of wavefronts, but every classical optical problem can be solved this way, as it closely mirrors what the maxwell laws mean). having a refractive index of less than one does not make the light move faster, just the wavefront for a wave with a stable frequency. if you change the frequency, amplitude, fourier-thingy, whatever of the wave, the change in the wavefronts won't move faster than the speed of light, so no information can be conducted. as said, feynmann explained this clearly in the (first volume?) of his lectures, but i imagine everybody here has read them...

what a negative index of refraction could possibly mean is beyond me. if you choose snell's law to define the index of refraction then you get in trouble here (v = c/n therefore the speed of the wavefront is negative?). i imagine there's another more general definition of n which i don't know. anybody here have an idea?

howie

Re:So what is this non-natural world?

[Vellmont]

And humans live outside nature? Everything is part of nature. I think this is was the original post was trying to convey. The idea that humans exist outside of nature only leads to poor conclusions.

Re:So what is this non-natural world?

[bw_bur]

Negative refraction is not found in nature, in the same way that cars are not found in nature. In this sense it is not "natural".

You want to insist on labelling all man-made creations as natural, because man is part of nature, but this seems unhelpful and rather pointless. In this case there it is obvious that "natural" means "not made by man".

Re:mandatory Star Trek quote

[bucky0]

Regular lenses work by slowing down light. Is it likely that you can speed up light?

The absolute value of the index is stil 1 which means that the light is still slower than C, it's just bent in the opposite direction when it hits the interface. speed in media = index of refraction * speed of light in vacum

ahh, I would post more, but I'm late for lunch. I'll be around later.

Re:So what is this non-natural world?

[jcorgan]

In this case, they're doing something that makes it bend in a way that it doesn't naturally do without our intervention.

Since when are we not part of the natural world?

overblown pr

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a grad student in photonics and I RTFA so,

This is yet another theory paper on a super lens, which by itself with super resolution is not a new concept as has been stated on this forum before. The PR is very vague on the article itself, bc there is not much there on actual experimental progress. The publication certainly has its merits in theory realm, but the biggest hurdle is creating negative refraction materials in optical scale (~visible wavelength or so) to make this possible.

So, this is Oregon State PR department blowing a theory paper into somethin that its not.

Nothing to see here, move along..