A team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh managed to create a means for transmitting data thousands of times faster than standard frequencies.
The team, led by Hrvoje Petek, a physics and chemistry professor in Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, successfully created what they called a “frequency comb” that spans more than 100 terahertz (THz) of bandwidth by exciting a coherent collective of atomic motions in a semiconductor silicon crystal.
The Power of Terahertz Bandwidth
The frequency comb is created by the division of a single colour of light into a series of evenly spaced spectral lines for a variety of uses.
What this means is that Petek and his colleagues devised a structure that could theoretically transmit data to devices like mobile phones and computers in the terahertz frequency region. In fact, they observed reflected light oscillating at 15.6 THz during their experiments.
The research was published in the March 4, 2012 issue of Nature Photonics and summarised on the University of Pittsburgh website.
A Long Awaited Discovery
Petek stated that the team had discovered a physical basis for terahertz bandwidth, which could potentially be used to leverage the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwave light. This would allow data transmission at rates several orders of magnitude faster than conventional wireless electronics, which are typically limited to gigahertz frequencies.
The ability to modulate light with such a high bandwidth could increase the amount of information carried by more than 1,000 times when compared to the volume carried with standard technologies. Needless to say, this was a long awaited discovery in the field of data transmission.
Looking Ahead to Petahertz Frequencies
The scientists worked with silicon, the material used to fabricate the semiconductors at the heart of computing process technology. Petek noted that his team expected to hit 15.6 THz in its experiments, which represents the highest mechanical frequency of atoms within a silicon lattice.
However, the University of Pittsburgh researchers were aiming even higher. By studying the coherent oscillation of electrons, Petek and his colleagues believed they could harness light and matter interactions in the petahertz frequency range, which would be 1,000 times faster again than the terahertz oscillations they achieved.
This groundbreaking research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
