India, July 7 -- In a significant development, researchers from Bengaluru have shown for the first time that how a metal interacts with light can be actively tuned by applying mechanical strain. The finding overturns a decades-old assumption in physics that optical properties of metals are unchangeable and opens new pathways for building reconfigurable, programmable optical devices that are fully compatible with standard semiconductor manufacturing.
Metals can trap and concentrate light into volumes far smaller than the wavelength of light itself, a phenomenon known as plasmon resonance. This remarkable ability underpins a wide range of technologies, from ultrasensitive chemical sensors and cancer diagnostics to sub-wavelength photonic cir...