Oct. 31, 2012 Stanford researchers in physics and engineering
have demonstrated a device that produces a synthetic magnetism
to exert virtual force on photons similar to the effect of
magnets on electrons. The advance could yield a new class of
nanoscale applications that use light instead of electricity.
Magnetically speaking, photons are the mavericks of the
engineering world. Lacking electrical charge, they are free to
run even in the most intense magnetic fields. But all that may
soon change. In a paper published in Nature Photonics, an
interdisciplinary team from Stanford University reports that it
has created a device that tames the flow of photons with
synthetic magnetism. The process breaks a key law of physics
known as the time-reversal symmetry of light and could yield an
entirely new class of devices that use light instead of
electricity for applications ranging from accelerators and
microscopes to speedier on-chip communications. "This is a
fundamentally new way to manipulate light flow. It presen