The concept of the refrigerator, which automatically processes your in-store purchases and notifies you of expired products, may sound like an exciting glimpse into the not-so-distant future. However, the less attractive aspect of the Internet of Things (IoT) is the large amount of data that it will generate and require to be stored and transferred between different points. Every instance, no matter how far away, is physically located somewhere and data must be moved from that location to other domains, even within the server itself. Such data transmission can potentially become a serious obstacle to the efficiency of data processing.

Similarly, AI is increasingly becoming an everyday function, but it also requires a lot of data. Technologies such as blockchain, increased media consumption and virtual reality will contribute to the increasing wave of error messages and warnings that encourage us to increase storage capacity and data transfer bandwidth.

Spintronics is the field that studies the spin properties of electrons and has the potential to revolutionize data storage and transmission by introducing new types of memory devices that can store data more efficiently. Similarly, photonics may offer a greater ability than conventional technologies to encode information about photons of light using their polarization, similar to the spin of electrons, but only if you can manage it.

In a study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Physicists from the TMOS, ARC Transducer Meta-Optical Systems Center of Excellence, including researchers from the City University of New York, the Australian National University, and the Air Force Research Laboratory, developed the new method. for designing metasurfaces. This method can create electromagnetic spin by creating a new type of photonic mode in an innovative Dirac-like waveguide. This advances previous research on low-loss information transmission using signal transmission across topological interfaces.

Traditionally, topological waveguides are formed with steep edges between their various interfaces. These edges create boundary modes, which are electromagnetic waves that behave differently where the edges are than they do in most of the material. These marginal modes can be used efficiently in many ways, but they only have one direction of rotation and lack emission control.

Principal investigator Professor Oleksandr B. Khanikaev and his team implemented a new approach to metasurface interfaces. Instead of a hard edge, they flatten the boundaries, creating a gradual shift into the plate of the metasurface. Instead of individual shapes connected to each other, they introduced minor variations in the design, in this case a pattern of holes forming repeating hexagons so that the shapes gradually merge. This has led to the emergence of entirely new modes of electromagnetic waves with very exciting radiative properties not previously seen on metasurfaces. Two modes with different spins can coexist at the same frequency, one radiating more than the other. Kiryushechkin et al. they were able to choose a specific rotation mode.

This method may soon lead to the ability to independently control the rotation of both modes. By creating a binary degree of freedom, this will open up important opportunities for the field of spin photonics and the possible development of data storage systems that use the binary spin of photons to encode and process information.

Co-author Dr. “The proof-of-concept experiment finally validated our theoretical findings and modeling,” said Daria Smirnova. Interestingly enough, this effect can be explained by combining Dirac formalism with appropriate electrodynamics to explain the radiative nature of the modes developed.”

“Being able to create a binary spin-like light structure on a chip and manipulate it on demand opens up really exciting possibilities for encoding the information in it, especially quantum information. Our team, in collaboration with our colleagues at TMOS and AFRL, is currently working on such photonic spin-based quantum connections, as well as basic quantum logic operations on a silicon photonic chip,” Khanikaev said.

Dragomir Neshev, Director of the TMOS Center, says: “This interagency teamwork has significantly advanced the field of meta-optics. This is an extraordinary achievement and the best example of why Centers of Excellence exist. They facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience, often limited to the researcher’s own networks. I’m excited to see what comes after these collaborators.” Source