„We were surprised by how powerful this ultra-thin crystal is,” said Chicago professor Jiwoong Park, „not only can it store energy, but it can deliver a thousand times more than anyone has seen in similar systems. It’s as if trapped light travels in 2D space. was going on.
Because both electrons and photons can be thought of as wave-like entities, researchers have borrowed the mathematics developed to describe electron behavior.
„Extremely thin provides a light-trapping mechanism analogous to a δ-potential well in quantum mechanics and enables guided waves, which are essentially a plane wave propagating freely in-plane, but out-of-plane, confined in the direction of the waveguide,” according to ’Wafer-scale δ waveguides for integrated two-dimensional photonics’, a paper describing scientific work.
by designing MoS2 and adding various dielectric and metallic structures: refraction, focusing and intensity modulation were demonstrated, and gratings and inter-connectors were constructed.
Photons in the waveguide are affected by the external environment.
„For example, say you have a liquid sample and you want to sense whether a particular molecule is present,” Park said. „You can design this waveguide to travel through the sample, and the presence of that molecule changes how the light behaves.”
Intra-chip communication is another potential application, and Chicago said the technique, primarily, could also be applied to some other 2D materials.