Science Daily March 22, 2023
Recently, optical switches have been demonstrated using terahertz and ultrafast laser pulses to control the electrical signal and enhance the switching speed to the picosecond and a few hundred femtoseconds time scale. An international team of researchers (USA- University of Arizona, Ohio State University, Germany) used the reflectivity modulation of the fused silica dielectric system in a strong light field to demonstrate the optical switching (ON/OFF) with attosecond time resolution. They presented the capability of controlling the optical switching signal with complex synthesized fields of ultrashort laser pulses for data binary encoding. AccrdingAccording to the researchers their work paves the way for establishing optical switches and light-based electronics with petahertz speeds, several orders of magnitude faster than the current semiconductor-based electronics, opening a new realm in information technology, optical communications, and photonic processor technologies…Â read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
The basic principle of the attosecond optical switching… Credit: SCIENCE ADVANCES, 22 Feb 2023, Vol 9, Issue 8