Silicon nanoparticles to improve fiber optic networks

5/12/2016, Milan Šurkala

Telecommunication is never fast and good enough. Although the nanoparticles are already used in telecommunication, researches came with a new solution that will use silicon nanoparticles in order to improve it and shrink the size of devices.

A nanotechnology is already used in telecommunication and we can expect that it will be even more used in the future. Researches from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, ITMO University in St. Petersburg, and the Australian National University demonstrated the ability to increase the intensity of the Raman effect. This effect is already used in telecommunication in fiber optic and it is connected with emitting the photons.

source: ITMO University

If the light interacts with some materials, the vibrating molecule the light is interacting with can increase its energy and emit the photon with lower energy with longer wavelength. The emitted light is, therefore, more red. This property is used to boost signal when travelling for a long distance in glass fiber. Today, metallic nanoparticles are usually used but the researches were able to demonstrate this effect with silicon nanoparticles.

Silicon has very high refractive index and because of that, its magnetic dipole resonance in 300nm+ wavelengths can be observed even when the diameter of the nanoparticle is just 100 nanometers. Because of that research, future optical devices can be much smaller and more powerful for a long-distance communication.