Light Resonators Used To Move Nano-Sized Objects 63
ElectricSteve writes "Scientists at Cornell University report they can now use a light beam carrying a single milliwatt of power to move objects and even change the optical properties of silicon from opaque to transparent at the nanometric scale." As the article says, such an advancement "could prove very useful for the future of micro-electromechanical (MEMS) and micro-optomechanical (MOMS) systems."
Future switching? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this will be used in future optical routers and switches or even processors - if the opaque-transparent (and back) switch happens fast enough, you could easily do a very large number of parallel on-off switches to optical pathways. No need for lots of MEMS/MOMS mirrors any more.
Imagine a nanoscale thinking machines cm-5, except the light panels would then actually be part of the computation, controlling which nodes are on or off.
Re:How about giving credit where due? (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is it's Michal Lipson's group:
http://nanophotonics.ece.cornell.edu/ [cornell.edu]