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Photonics

One-way road for light

Nature volume 461, pages 744–745 (2009)Cite this article

The transmission of information from one place to another by light waves sent through waveguides is hampered by light attenuation and scattering loss. Magnetic photonic crystals could provide a solution to such problems.

The concept of photonic crystals — periodically arranged structures specifically engineered to trap and guide light — grew from an initial analogy1,2,3 with the electronic band structure of semiconductors. In these materials, no electrons can be found that have energies within a range known as the 'band gap'. Similarly, in photonic crystals, photons whose frequencies fall within the 'photonic band gap' are prevented from flowing inside the material.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eli Yablonovitch is in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-1770, USA. eliy@eecs.berkeley.edu,

    Eli Yablonovitch

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Yablonovitch, E. One-way road for light. Nature 461, 744–745 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461744a

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