Photonic Nanotechnology

Filed in archive Research on July 26, 2007

Optical tweezers and plasmonics represent the light-based side of nanotechnology, where photons are used to perform useful tasks such as lab-on-a-chip functions and the mechanical manipulation of tiny objects like proteins. Plasmonics has garnered tremendous excitement in the last couple years, because of the way it can circumvent traditional size restrictions based on light wavelength. Eventually, plasmonics may be used to create optical nanocomputers millions of times faster than the best we have today. Optical tweezing technology won its inventor the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics.