Semiconductor makers should take a hint from Mother Nature when pursuing photonic crystals for optical computing, according to University of Utah researchers studying a Brazilian beetle: this bug’s eerie iridescence is evidence of its unique photonic lattice structure — called the “champion” architecture in photonic circles. Since the 1990s, when photonic crystals were most recently popularized, the ideal, or “champion,” architecture has been sought for the filtering ability of its band-gap, which depends on the spacing between nodes in a lattice. Just as silicon’s band-gap enables transistors to perform not just data-communication tasks, but also amplification and computation, likewise photonic crystals with band gaps should be able to amplify and compute with light instead of electrons.
Beetle Solves Photonic-Crystal Mystery That’s Bugged Researchers
May 22, 2008