Researchers Create New Nanotechnology Field

Dr. Abdulhakem Elezzabi and his colleagues have applied plasmonics principles to spintronics technology and created a novel way to control the quantum state of an electron's spin.

The new technology, which the researchers call spinplasmonics, may be used to create incredibly efficient electron spin-based photonic devices, which in turn may be used to build, for example, computers with extraordinary capacities.
SOURCE:
PhysOrg.com

I have to say, I love the first sentence in the article, it's just so wonderfully
scientific and mysterious sounding.

The idea in the article is pretty cool though, as most people who know anything about
computer science knows the age of the silicon chip will not last for more than two more
decades, as we will eventually reach the fundamental limit of what we can do with silicon
chips, so research into concepts to continue on with the miniaturization of devices that are
even more powerful is very cool.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 5/30/2007 by iori_komei]


Mod edit: removed copy/paste to meet these requirements: "If you feel inclined to make the board aware of news, current events, or important information from other sites that supports the thread; please post one or two paragraphs, a link to the entire story, AND your opinion, twist or take on the news item as it relates to the thread."



[edit on 30-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

DUDE! I know this guy! I took a class from Dr. Elezzabi when I was at the University of Alberta! This guy has a really hard core research group involved in a lot of different projects, and in his own words, he 'pretty much lives in his lab'. I'm not surprised he would be in the news like this. He's a really smart guy, and works harder than most of the professors I knew.

I like this quote; knowing the guy, it is so typical of something he would say:

"To me this is almost a natural evolution of the two fields. I'm actually surprised that no one else looked around and saw what others were doing and combined the two before we did," Elezzabi added. "This opens up a lot of possibilities; this is just the beginning."

In the photonics class I took from him, he always used to say that if you want to invent new things, you have to have an excellent grasp of physics, especially the basics. Now, while I hardly consider quantum electron spin to be 'basic', I think it can be extended to more advanced topics like this.

Again, going from personal knowledge of the guy, Elezzabi told our class that he one day envisions computers that run totally on things like quantum principles and optics, rather than electronics. He told us that all the technology exists already, except for optical memory.

From the article:

Also, they believe that with a slight alteration of the sample structure the effect is non-volatile, meaning that any given result can be maintained indefinitely without the necessity of a power source.

This, to me, sounds like, if perfected, that it could very well lead to optical memory. I have no idea how financially viable any of this or the previously existing technology in the field is, but it will be a very exciting field to follow.

That's cool, Dragons!

Don't have time this morning, but maybe we could look up some of his papers or articles about him and the topic and add them to this thread. Exciting stuff!

I would say spin is essential and basic physics and I agree with the professor.
The marrigae of the two disiplines is amazingly only happening now.
I hope the readers take some time to learn about spin in its many froms from the electron to the planets.
spin is the future and its here now.
plasmonics is also the future and its here now.
geometry spin and plasma is the science of antigravity.
not just quantum computers.

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
Elezzabi told our class that he one day envisions computers that run totally on things like quantum principles and optics, rather than electronics. He told us that all the technology exists already, except for optical memory.

Don't they already use mutiple lasers and a cube of crystal to store data in 3 dimensional space (same principle as CD's/DVD's but using 2 / 3 or more lasers to intersect a point within the cube)?

The whole thread is a bit over my head at the moment, so I may have the wrong end of the stick on optical memory - i'm thinking an evoloution of the 2 dimensional CD technology that we use now. Constructive critism greatfully accepted!

Optical memory would be, correct me if I'm wrong, the ability to store a Photon encoded with information in a device that can release it(or release a duplicate) without the intermediary step of transcribing it to a physical medium. Did that make sense?

No, well maybe.

In order not to make this a one liner - I herby promise to read more on this subject.

I can feel the headache allready.

If we can control the spin of an electron/photon, then what does that mean in the context of quantum entanglement, where two particles show diametrically opposite spin no matter what the distance? does it mean that we can communicate faster-than-light?