Researchers develop new optical device, could help build faster computers

Researchers at Washington University in St Louis have developed an essential component of new computers that would run on light. “We believe that our discovery would benefit many other fields involving electronics, acoustics, plasmonics and meta-materials,” said Lan Yang, an associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at Washington University. “Coupling of so-called loss and gain devices using PT -symmetry could enable such advances as cloaking devices, stronger lasers that need less input power, and perhaps detectors that could ‘see’ a single atom,” Yang added. When the rate of gain in one resonator exactly equals that of loss in the other, the “phase transition” occurs at a critical coupling distance between the resonators. Simply put, when a “lossy” system is coupled with a “gain” system such that loss of energy exactly equals gain at an equilibrium point, a “phase transition” occurs.