The Technion researchers managed to "screw" light and inject it into a nanometer hole

The editor of the prestigious journal Nature Materials selected the work as a breakthrough in nanophotonics

The Technion researchers, Prof. Erez Hasman, Dr. Vladimir Kleiner, Yuri Gorodetsky, Nir Shtrit, and Iti Bretner, from the Laboratory for Micro and Nano-Optics in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Russell Berry Institute for Research in Nanotechnology, succeeded in "screwing" light and introducing it into a nanometer hole with a diameter of one thousandth of a hair. This was published in the scientific journal Nano Letters and defined by the editor of the prestigious scientific journal Nature Materials as a breakthrough with very promising results for application in the realization of optical components on the nanometer scale.

Also, the research work was chosen by the American Optics Association as one of the most important studies in nano-optics for 2009. The researchers hope that this will be used in computers in communication and displays and in the future it will be possible, thanks to this, to reduce the components down to the nano scale and significantly improve the performance of computers.

"Until 1998, it was known that light does not pass through such a tiny hole, which is much smaller than a wavelength," says Professor Erez Hasman. "In 1998, a groundbreaking paper was written by Professor Thomas Ebsen from the University of Strasbourg, who showed that under certain conditions, light can also pass through such a tiny hole. In the laboratory for micro and nano optics we created a small hole, in the shape of a 'pretzel', on a thin layer of gold. We implemented this using a focused ion beam. Around the hole we created 'spiral grooves', similar to screwing a screw. Through the hole we sent light, and gave it a spin, a kind of 'whirlpool'. When the direction of the swirl matched the screw we created in the hole - the light penetrated through. For a light in a spin that did not fit the screw, the light did not go through." This is the first time that it has been proven that it is possible to control the light passing through a nanometer hole with the help of its spin, and this will allow in the future to make logic components in light at the nano level, when the logic component is controlled by the spin of the light.

At the end of 2008, Professor Hasman and his team succeeded in developing a new way to control light on a nanometer scale by means of 'spinning' (as you "spin" a tennis or ping pong ball). "The creation of a lateral force on a rotating cylindrical or spherical solid immersed in a liquid (or gas) when there is a relative movement between the rotating body and the liquid is called the Magnus effect," Professor Hasman explains.

"The German physicist Heinrich Magnus first described the effect in 1853. In many ball games, the Magnus effect is responsible for the trajectory of a spinning ball (for example, a soccer, tennis or ping pong player who 'spins' the ball). The Magnus effect also affects the trajectory of rotating missiles, and affects the flight of certain aircraft. Electromagnetic waves, which also behave as massless particles called photons, have an internal property - 'spin' of the photons. The spin, which is the internal angular momentum of the photons, depends on the direction of the circular polarization of the light.

The Technion researchers reported in their article from 2008 on a unified theory on the subject and for the first time on a direct experimental observation of a spin-dependent deviation - the Magnus effect in photons. The Magnus effect for light (also called the spin Hall effect), causes light to deviate due to the interaction between the spin of the photons and the shape of its trajectory. The possible implications of their work are very broad. "The application of this effect with photonic and nano-optical means may lead to the development of a new field of research - spin optics", says Prof. Hasman. "We hope that we will be able to control light on a nanometer scale, in ways that have not been possible until now."

The current breakthrough is a direct continuation of that research.