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Nanotraps boost light intensity for future optical devices

A method for configuring light-trapping devices promises better optical nanodevices by amplifying light and enhancing the emission efficiency of luminescent nanomaterials — without the need for complex technology upgrades.
  1. Kirill Koshelev

    1. Kirill Koshelev is in the Nonlinear Physics Centre, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, Canberra, 2601, Australia.

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Intense light beams are crucial for myriad applications, ranging from medicine to electronics, but they are challenging to produce with everyday light sources. They can, however, be generated by lasers. Lasers work by trapping light in a cavity, called an optical resonator, in which reflected light waves interfere constructively to amplify the light’s intensity through a phenomenon known as optical resonance. But light can be emitted, scattered or absorbed by the resonator material, limiting the extent to which its intensity can be enhanced — especially in devices that operate on a nanometre scale, such as ultraprecise sensors. Writing in Nature, Schiattarella et al.1 report a smart way of balancing the possibilities for light to escape a nanoresonator, and therefore increase light intensity by a factor of up to 36,000.

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Nature 626, 722-723 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00311-5

References

  1. Schiattarella, C. et al. Nature 626, 765–771 (2024).

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  2. Chen, H. T., Taylor, A. J. & Yu, N. Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 076401 (2016).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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