Light focus theory wrong

ACCORDING TO an article in Technology Research News, researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg have demonstrated a way to focus light more tightly.

Conventional wisdom - affecting such things from Moore's Law to optical data storage - said that light could only be focused as narrowly as half its wavelength before the rays started to cancel each out, forcing chip manufacturers to look at shorter wavelengths, like UV to pack more bits onto a mask.

Turns out conventional wisdom is wrong, and the research wonks have demonstrated that it is possible to focus polarized light to an area about 40 per cent smaller than the (former) theory limit. Using radially polarization light, researches say that the storage capacity of a DVD could be increased by about 150 percent without changing the disk area or the wavelength of light used.

Needless to say, a tighter light focus would also pay off in smaller circuit etching and may even result in better optical microscopes. Practical applications of the research could appear within two years, say the professors. µ

L'INQ
Technology Research News