Researchers have engineered a new device that can be used to control and manipulate electromagnetic radiation over a wide range of wavelengths. They say it could potentially be used for “applications including sensing, photo-detection and nonlinear frequency generation.”
A team of international scientists led by the University of Exeter in England created a hybrid metamaterial device by combining nano-ribbons of graphene with a type of antenna called a split ring resonator. The resulting system strongly interacts with electromagnetic radiation. The team demonstrated that the new hybrid structure could be used as a type of optical switch to control a beam of light. They conducted an experiment using long wavelengths of light, which they were able to interrupt and turn on or off.
Researcher Geoff Nash, said, “In these novel results we demonstrate a new type of structure which can be used not only as an exciting test bed to explore the underlying new science, but that could form the basis of a range of technologically important components.” The research, is described in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.
