Making light go faster than light!

Here is an article talking about nanochains of particles that somehow make light go 2.5X faster than C, useful for fiber optics and optics circuitry:http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2008/August/20/93055.aspx

Originally posted by sonhouse
Here is an article talking about nanochains of particles that somehow make light go 2.5X faster than C, useful for fiber optics and optics circuitry:http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2008/August/20/93055.aspx

It's not the group velocity of the light but the phase velocity that they're describing I think. I thought that it had been proven that you could do that but that it was theoretically impossible to transmit information that way.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
It's not the group velocity of the light but the phase velocity that they're describing I think. I thought that it had been proven that you could do that but that it was theoretically impossible to transmit information that way.

Very true, but they are using the phase velocity to increase the bandwidth of information that goes the old slow route at the speed of light. Also using the phase velocity in such a way as to trick the main wave to make a fast left turn which as is well known in the photonics industry (where I work) that you previously had to only gently guide light to make a 90 degree bend. With this new work, light can be tricked to hang a left on a dime, a nanosized dime.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Very true, but they are using the phase velocity to increase the bandwidth of information that goes the old slow route at the speed of light. Also using the phase velocity in such a way as to trick the main wave to make a fast left turn which as is well known in the photonics industry (where I work) that you previously had to only gently guide light to make ...[text shortened]... egree bend. With this new work, light can be tricked to hang a left on a dime, a nanosized dime.

You have a job? For some reason I thought you were in high school.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
You have a job? For some reason I thought you were in high school.

Wow, I'll take that as a compliment🙂
I work at a company called Cyoptics, in the final test phase of a product that modulates a laser beam at 40,000 megahertz shoving that beam into an optical fiber that will hold that signal for over 100 Km without the need of a repeater. Before that, I was a road warrier for Varian and Associates, for 20 years on the road in the Ion Implanter devision, but in 98 they sold that division back to Extrion in Gloucester Mass where it started out. Ion implanters are used in the semiconductor industry to impart conductivity (between that of an insulator and a metal, thus the term SEMI conductor) by 'doping' pure silicon with some specific ions, the big three being Phosphorous, Arsenic and Boron, which lets you choose between positive charge carriers and negative charge carriers, either way, the ions when imbedded in a silicon crystal lattice act as way stations for electrons, scattered at about 1 % or so of the silicon. Silicon, having valence bonds, don't like to share their electrons so the ionic guys get put into the crystal lattice, taking up the space formerly occupied by a silicon and they get stuck in place just like traffic cops, to the electons, MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG...
Quite a bit of very interesting physics in the ion implanter.
But that is old history now. Did three years in Israel, took my whole family there at company expense, they paid for the kid's school, 3 kids, and rent for the house and paid the rent on a car. It was a nice time for sure. That was in Jerusalem at one of the Intel plants there. There are two there now, BIG money makers for Israel.