Photonic Crystal Made to Work at an Optical Wavelength

One of the great dreams of the telecommunications industry has been to use light, rather than electrons, to carry information. The reason: The speed of information communicated between and within computers would increase almost unimaginably. The industry has already taken the first step toward that goal in the form of fiber-optic cables that transmit informationtelephone calls, for instance, or the frenetic buzz of the Internetfrom one location to another. But a major bottleneck remains. Much of the work of getting information into and out of the fiber is still done with traditional electronics. Recent developments, however, could soon change that.