Switch Controls Light on a Nanoscale for Faster Information Processing

Photons, or units of light, are faster than electrons and could, therefore, process information faster from smaller chip structures. A switch was designed that bypasses a tendency for the unwanted absorption of light when using surface plasmons, or light coupled to oscillations of free electron clouds, to help confine light to a nanoscale. Even though plasmonics downsizes light, photons also get lost, or absorbed, rather than transferred to other parts of the computer chip when they interact with plasmons.