Researchers at California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) have developed
a new 'light-bending silicon chip'
which could help users give
presentations that are projected on
a conference room wall via your cell
phone!
The new chip eliminates the need of
expensive and bulky lens used in
traditional projectors. Ali Hajimiri
and his team were able to bypass
traditional optics by manipulating
the coherence of light - a property
that allows the researchers to
"bend" the light waves on the
surface of the chip without lenses or
the use of any mechanical
movement.
“This chip uses a so-called
integrated optical phased array
(OPA) to project the image
electronically with only a single laser
diode as light source and no
mechanically moving parts,”
explained Ali Hajimiri, Thomas G.
Myers professor of electrical
engineering at Caltech. “By changing
the relative timing of the waves, you
can change the direction of the light
beam,” Hajimiri added.
“The new thing about our work is
really that we can do this on a tiny,
one-millimeter-square silicon chip.
We can do it very rapidly to form
images since we phase-shift
electronically in two dimensions,”
said Behrooz Abiri, a graduate
student in Hajimiri’s team.
“In the future, this can be
incorporated into a cell phone. Since
there is no need for a lens, you can
have a phone that acts as a
projector all by itself,” Hajimiri told
the gathering at the Optical Fiber
Communication (OFC) conference in
San Francisco recently.
Researchers are developing new
devices with smartphones to make
our lives easier. Recently a team of
researchers from University of
Houston have developed a disease
diagnostic system based on
nanotechnology that will only
require a smartphone and a Rs 1200
lens attachment to check for
diseases. The tool will assist
healthcare providers by giving them
an affordable and easy to read
method to diagnose diseases.
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