According to Richard Stevenson, a freelance science and technology journalist based in Chepstow, Wales, theorists in China and the US claim that infrared light shone onto a line of silicon nanopillars can be bent by 90° as it travels through the material – without being reflected at all. This finding, if confirmed experimentally, would offer a novel approach to optical beam steering, which usually requires specially crafted “metamaterials”. The researchers say that the line of pillars could be used to bend beams of light in photonic circuits, possibly helping to steer light inside the components used in optical networks.
Junjie Du of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai and his colleagues have considered the consequences of shining infrared light at two specific wavelengths – 1550 nm and 2362 nm – onto a line of 15 nanopillars at an angle of 45°. All of these half-micron-wide pillars are made from silicon, rather than the metal components typically found in metamaterials, because absorption losses are lower.