Nanotechnology in Communication

Washington, May 4 (ANI): Communication devices will soon

turn smaller, more flexible and more powerful, thanks to a

nano-based technology that can make computers and the

Internet hundreds of times faster.

Currently being created by Dr. Koby Scheuer of Tel Aviv

University's School of Electrical Engineering, the

communications technology "enabler" could only be used in

five or ten years in the future.

Scheuer has developed a new plastic-based technology for

the nano-photonics market, which manufactures optical

devices and components.

The plastic-based "filter" is made from nanometer-sized

grooves embedded into the plastic.

When used in fibre optics cable switches, the new device

will make our communication devices smaller, more flexible

and more powerful, he said.

"Once Americans have a fibre optics cable coming into

every home, all communication will go through it -

telephone, cable TV, the Internet. But to avoid

bottlenecks of information, we need to separate the

information coming through into different channels. Our

polymeric devices can do that in the optical domain - at a

speed, quality and cost that the semi-conductor industry

can't even imagine," said Scheuer.

Every optical device used in today's communication tools

has a filter.

Ten years from now, fibre optic cables that now run from

city to city will feed directly into every individual

home.

When that technology comes to light, the new plastic-based

switches could revolutionize the way we communicate.

"Right now, we could transmit all of the written text of

the world though a single fiber in a fiber optics cable in

just a few seconds. But in order to handle these massive

amounts of communication data, we need filters to make

sense of the incoming information. Ours uses a

plastic-based switch, replacing hard-to-fabricate and

expensive semi-conductors," said Scheuer.

Semi-conductors, grown on crystals in sterile labs and

processed in special ovens, take days and sometimes months

to manufacture. They are delicate and inflexible as well,

said Scheuer.

"Our plastic polymer switches come in an easy-to-work-with

liquid solution. Using a method called 'stamping,' almost

any laboratory can make optical devices out of the silicon

rubber mold we've developed," he added.

The silicon rubber mould is scored with nano-sized

grooves, invisible to the eye and each less than a

millionth of a meter in width.

A plastic solution can be poured over the mould to

replicate the optical switch in minutes.

When in place in a fibre-optic network, the grooves on the

switch modulate light coming in through the cables, and

the data is filtered and encoded into usable information.

The device can also be used in the gyros of planes, ships

and rockets; inserted into cell phones; and made a part of

flexible virtual reality gloves so doctors could "operate"

on computer networks over large distances.