A research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has recently invented an innovative ‘converter’ that can bind the speed and small size of plasmons for high-frequency data processing and transmission in nanoelectronics.
This pioneering transducer can directly convert electrical signals into plasmonic signals, and vice versa, in a single step.
This technology can achieve this feat without any light source, unlike others which require multiple-steps and large optical elements further complicating the integration with nanoelectronics.
By connecting plasmonics and nanoscale electronics, chips run faster and reduce power losses.
This plasmonic-electronic transducer is about 10,000 times smaller than other optical elements.
This can readily integrate into the existing technologies and can potentially be used in a wide range of applications in the future.
Based on the lab experiments, the electron-to-plasmon conversion has an efficiency of more than 10 percent, more than 1,000 times higher than previously reported.
This revolutionary work was conducted in alliance with Dr.Chu Hong Son from the Institute of High-Performance Computing under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
Invention bagged four patents and could potentially make microprocessor chips work 1,000 times faster.
The researchers plan to conduct further studies to reduce the size of the device so that it can be operated at much higher frequencies.
The team is also working on integrating the transducers with more efficient plasmonic waveguides for better performance.
