Pyramid nanoscale antennas beam light up and down. Post #349
Pyramid nanoscale antennas beam light up and down : "Researchers from FOM Institute AMOLF and Philips Research have designed and fabricated a new type of nanoscale antenna. The new antennas look like pyramids, rather than the more commonly used straight pillars. The pyramid shape enhances the interference between the magnetic and electric fields of light. This makes the pyramid-shaped antenna capable of enhancing light emission and beaming different colours of light towards opposite directions. This finding could lead to more efficient light emitting devices (LEDs). The researchers published their results online on 12 December 2014 in Physical Review Letters. Individual antennas A straight nanoscale antenna will mainly respond to the electric field of light. This means that the effects of the magnetic field of light, which holds half of the energy of light, are disregarded. For a long time this was not considered as an issue that could be solved, because most of the metals use...