Multimedia Gallery
All images in this series
Photonic switch controls light passing through optical fibers faster
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have built a new photonic switch that can control the direction of light passing through optical fibers faster and more efficiently than ever. The photonic switch is manufactured using a technique called photolithography in which each "light switch" structure is etched into a silicon wafer. Each light-gray square on the wafer contains 6,400 of these switches.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (grants IIP 18-27633 and EEC 08-12072). Learn more in the NSF News From the Field story Largest, fastest array of microscopic 'traffic cops' for optical communications. (Date image taken: March 4, 2019; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: June 27, 2019)
Credit: Kyungmok Kwon
Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.
Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.
Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.
Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (676.7 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.