A group of researchers showed how, using pulses of light, electron transfer can be accelerated, and thus was able to switch electron currents at a speed of about 600 attoseconds (10-18).
Components of modern electronics are usuallybased on semiconductor technology, can be turned on or off in picoseconds (10-12). At the same time, ordinary mobile phones and computers operate at maximum frequencies of several gigahertz, and only individual transistors can approach terahertz performance. Furtherincreasing the speed of oscillations is a difficult task.
However, scientists from the Universities of Constance,Paris-South, Luxembourg, the Center for Physics of Materials and the International Physics Center Donostia have developed an experimental setup for manipulating the movement of electrons using ultrashort light pulses.
It consisted of nano-sized gold antennas andultra-fast laser emitting 100 million single-cycle pulses of light per second to generate the measured current. An optical antenna in the shape of a butterfly recorded the subwavelength and subcyclic spatiotemporal concentration of the electric field of the pulse in a gap 6 nm wide.
As a result of nonlinear tunnelingelectrons from the metal and acceleration in the gap of the optical field, the researchers managed to switch electron currents at a speed of about 600 atoseconds. This process occurs on time scales that are less than half the oscillation period of the light pulse.
According to scientists, in the distant future this technology will make it possible to create electronics that operate at the speed of light.
Earlier, we also reported on the development of a model of a quantum battery that can work without energy loss.
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