Improving high speed optical data transfer by employing ideas from TV-antennas
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - 09:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Standard TV-antennas receive signals carried by electromagnetic waves with frequencies in the MHz-regime and convert them into pulses of electric currents in the connected cables. The antenna connects two very different length scales: the carrier wavelength, ranging from centimeters to meters, and the size of the wiring, typically on the millimeter scale. Now, physicists have successfully applied this radiofrequency antenna concept to the optical wavelength regime.