Propogating Digital Data with Light

Sending information on light beams, instead of electrical signals, allows data to be transmitted thousands of times more quickly. But controlling the light beams without losing their energy has been the challenge. 
Group at the University of Texas at El Paso now designed Spatially variant photonic crystals (SVPCs) to transmit data rapidly on electronic circuit boards by using light. 
Kuebler and his students used direct laser writing, a kind of nanoscale 3D printing, to create the miniature lattices. 

The researchers then directed 2.94-μm light beams through the lattices, which they found could direct the light around a 90° turn without loss. Additionally, the researchers found that the SVPCs bent vertically polarized light 25 times more effectively than horizontally polarized light.
The finding is significant because with the demand for ever-smaller and faster computers and hand-held devices, engineers need ways to pack ultra-fast data-transmission devices into smaller spaces.