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Geometry of intricately fabricated glass makes light trap itself

• peter_d_sherman 6y ago
  >""We had to build the fabrication facility in our lab to precisely carve the three-dimensional waveguides through the glass, a process called femtosecond laser writing," said Sebabrata Mukherjee, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and first author of the paper. "The ability to write three-dimensional waveguides is crucial to making the device topological, a property that is confirmed experimentally by observing the 'protected' one-way flow of light along the edge of the device." Through a process called the "Kerr effect," the properties of the glass are changed due to the presence of the intense laser light. This change in the glass mediates an interaction between the many photons, which usually do not interact, propagating through the array. As the power was increased, the light collapsed into a beam that didn't spread out (i.e., diffract), but rather rotated in spirals." This article is now in my Top 10 all-time favorites on HN. Why? There's a lot to unpack here. This article needs to be re-read (by me at least!) numerous times in the future, because there's a lot that potentially has to do with optical/photon lithography, nanotechnology, waveguides, analagous phenomena in physics (i.e., electrons, photons), and a whole lot more... a treasure trove of goodies, to phrase it one way!