Super-fast data transmission: Denmark leads the way in nanoplasmonics

It is getting harder and harder for conventional electronics to satisfy the world's demands for ever more data transmitted at ever faster speeds. To achieve the kind of breakthrough needed for tomorrow's super-fast computer chips and super-fast internet, use needs to be made of light pulses which can carry information down fiber optic cables 1,000 times faster than electrical circuits. But there is a problem – optical cables need 10 times more space than electronics, which seriously compromises device compactness.

 

The solution to this problem could lie in the newly emerging science of nanoplasmonics, which involves technologies that can bind light so it can move around on a metal surface: in other words, combining the speed of fiber optics with the compactness of electronics. Denmark is fortunate to possess some of the brightest minds in nanoplasmonics, and now the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation is providing around DKK 20m (USD 3.6m) in state funding to boost knowledge and capabilities in this area through the project "Active Nanoplasmonics", reports professional journal Ingeniøren (The Engineer).

 

The research will be jointly conducted by Aalborg University and the University of Southern Denmark, with Professor Sergey Bozhevolnyi of the latter institution as the main architect of the project. Bozhevolnyi told Ingeniøren: "It [nanoplasmonics] is a very interesting technology and there are many people around the world who are looking at it. But I think that here in Denmark we have some of the best research scientists in the field. We are also involved in the first EU project where plasmonic circuits will actually be used for optical data transmission."

 

One of the big problems the researchers will face is that the waveguides used to move light around on metal surfaces have a bad habit. They absorb energy, and the smaller one makes them, the more energy they absorb and the more data is lost. Bozhevolnyi knows all about the problem, but he is not saying how he plans to go about solving it. Not that there is any great hurry – the project is set to run for the next 4½ years.