Blueprint for micro-photonic devices

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 923 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1369-7021
• DOI: 10.1016/s1369-7021(01)80020-1

✦ Synopsis

An acoustic equivalent of electronic or optical elements such as mirrors, lenses, switches and transistors moved a step closer with the findings of Jose Aragon and co-workers at the Instituto de Fisica Aplicada in Madrid. The Spanish researchers noticed that sound waves refracted through a device consisting of mercury cylinders inserted into a slab of aluminium did not obey Snell's Law. The researchers describe in the May 7 issue of Physical Review Letters (86, 19, 4282~,285) how their ultra-sonic device can split a beam of sound waves or "bend" the sound through an angle of 90 ° -even without perfect acoustic bandgap performance.