Light Bender

Researchers at Princeton University are trapping microwave beams and making them travel around in circles using this sphere-shaped "quasicrystal" made from thin polymer rods. The researchers hope to repeat the trick with visible light.

Quasicrystals are a special form of solid made up of two or more building blocks repeated over and over; ordinary crystals are made from only a single repeated building block.

The advance could have important implications for photonics, a growing new field that uses light to replace electricity as a means of transmitting and processing information.

Currently, light-encoded information channeled down fiber optic cables must be translated into electric signals before they can be used, but this method is slow and requires costly equipment.

The study is detailed in the Aug. 18 issue of the journal Nature.

--Ker Than

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