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Electrons Controlled in Graphene on a Sub-Femtosecond Scale Using Lasers

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the bright-idea dept.

takyon writes:

https://www.fau.eu/2017/09/25/news/research/the-fastest-light-driven-current-source/

Controlling electronic current is essential to modern electronics, as data and signals are transferred by streams of electrons which are controlled at high speed. Demands on transmission speeds are also increasing as technology develops. Scientists from the Chair of Laser Physics and the Chair of Applied Physics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have succeeded in switching on a current with a desired direction in graphene using a single laser pulse within a femtosecond ­­ – a femtosecond corresponds to the millionth part of a billionth of a second. This is more than a thousand times faster compared to the most efficient transistors today.

[...] For their experiments, the scientists fired extremely short laser pulses with specially engineered waveforms onto graphene. When these light waves hit the graphene, the electrons inside were hurled in one direction, like a whiplash. 'Under intense optical fields, a current was generated within a fraction of an optical cycle – a half femtosecond. It was surprising that despite these enormous forces, quantum mechanics still plays a key role,' explains Dr. Takuya Higuchi from the Chair of Laser Physics, the first author of the publication.

Light-field-driven currents in graphene (DOI: 10.1038/nature23900) (DX)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:47PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:47PM (#573915)

    Sure. It might even let you run Chrome at a reasonable speed, since Chrome is so much slower than Firefox (unless you have unlimited memory perhaps).

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:53PM (#573917)

    I've been using the Firefox 57 beta and it's damn slow for me compared to Chrome on the same system. I know it's not my Firefox extensions that are to blame, because Firefox 57 doesn't fucking support the extensions I was using!

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:28PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:28PM (#574070)

      Try this test: open up 100 tabs to different sites, in both browsers. Now see which one crawls.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:35PM (#573943)

    Troll post is obvious. You are either trolling, or trolling. Can't be both.