Nanoscale photodetector shows promise to improve the capacity of photonic circuits
Monday, October 5, 2015 - 12:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Photonic circuits, which use light to transmit signals, are markedly faster than electronic circuits. Unfortunately, they're also bigger. It's difficult to localize visible light below its diffraction limit, about 200-300 nanometers, and as components in electronic semiconductors have shrunk to the nanometer scale, the photonic circuit size limitation has given electronic circuits a significant advantage, despite the speed discrepancy.