Mehmet Bayındır and Assoc. Prof. Ekmel Özbay, researchers at Bilkent's "Advanced Research Laboratory in the Physics", have found a novel way of using photonic crystals to guide, bend and split light around small structures. Their discovery uses photons rather than electrons to push circuit devices to higher speeds and thus achieve greater functionality.
The innovative application will be used in constructing a new class of transistors - the future building blocks of the next generation of ultra-fast optical computers. It will be a key element in the development of optical switches which can speed up Internet connections by a factor of 100 or more and will also have significant implications for a new class of optoelectronic circuits and other high tech devices.
Their discovery has been cited as "one of the most important research works in the year 2000" in the December 2000 issue of Optics and Photonic News, a leading journal published by the Optical Society of America.
To find out more about this groundbreaking research, go to the Bilkent Photonic Bandgap Group website at
http://www.fen.bilkent.edu.tr/~bayindir.
