'Squeezed' Light Might Produce Breakthroughs in Nano-Sized Electronics

"It's one thing to produce nanoscale devices, but it's another to study and improve on them — they're so small they can't reflect enough light to get a good look," reports Engadget. "A breakthrough might make that possible, however." Univeristy of California Riverside researchers have built technology that squeezes tungsten lamp light into a 6-nanometer spot at the end of a silver nanowire. That lets scientists produce color imaging at an "unprecedented" level, rather than having to settle for molecular vibrations. The developers modified an existing "superfocusing" tool (already used to measure vibrations) to detect signals across the entire visible spectrum. Light travels in a flashlight-like conical path. When the nanowire's tip passes over an object, the system records that item's influence on the beam shape and color (including through a spectrometer). With two pieces of specrtra for every 6nm pixel, the team can create color photos of carbon nanotubes that would otherwise appear gray.
"The researchers expect that the new technology can be an important tool to help the semiconductor industry make uniform nanomaterials with consistent properties for use in electronic devices," according to an announcement from University of California Riverside, adding that the new full-color nano-imaging technique "could also be used to improve understanding of catalysis, quantum optics, and nanoelectronics."

squeeze that laser beam?

[roman_mir]

Stuff happens in pairs all the time as I noticed in my life over and over, so here it is again.
On /. front page there are 2 separate stories, both are about light related breakthroughs, is it a coincidence? well maybe. Still, how about squeezing that laser beam and using it to manipulate genes on a chip or some such )

https://www.eng.mcmaster.ca/ne... [mcmaster.ca]

Re: squeeze that laser beam?

[BytePusher]

How often do you notice that things happen in singlets and triplets? And do you feel that there could be auto-correlation, maybe an editor or editors are finding topics related to a particular topic interesting lately, among story topics on slashdot?

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[Toth]

I accidently marked this as "funny" when I intended "Informative" sorry

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Applehu Akbar]

You can't commercially purchase U that has been enriched enough (high enough percentage of 235U) to use in weapons. Power plants use a lower grade of enrichment.

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[backslashdot]

Very funny. Except, their research was actually publicly funded via the NSF and NNSF (China), you won't make a cynical comment about that would you?

Original source, bit its not squeezed

[joe_frisch]

https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com] Normally "squeezed" states refer to cases where the quantum mechanical uncertainty is put into one dimension rather than its conjugate (position rather than momentum for example). Unless I"m misunderstanding though, this is using a variant of near field microscopy, not quantum mechanical squeezing. The nature article doesn't mention squeezing, nor do the experimenters, its sloppy writing by engadget - who probably don't realize that "squeezing" is a technical term with a specific meaning.

Pics?

[robi5]

If it's so good, why aren't there two, perhaps zoomable photos side by side, one with the traditional method, the other with the new method?

Publishing an article about a supposed photography breakthrough, without showing at least one image is in the category of "you had one job"

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[Skapare]

traditional as in light with a wavelength of 400nm?

The type of "squeezed" light matters.

[fahrbot-bot]

Always get Fresh Squeezed light; the reconstituted, "Just Add Light", stuff is always a little off.

Maybe this can be used to see viruses?

[Skapare]

Maybe this can be used to see viruses? For example the SARS-CoV-2 virus is about 25nm in size, which will normally not reflect 400nm light (the short end of visible light, blue). i don't know how this "squeezed" light gets to be reflected from something that small, but if it can be emitted that small, maybe it has an influence on what can be reflected back. if this works, i can envision many uses that avoid the complexities of using an electron microscope.