Within photonics, “nanophotonics” is being studied at the finer nano-level.
It is a difficult field of study because it involves a lot of technical terminology, but it enriches our lives.

So in this article, I would like to give you a biting explanation of nanophotonic and how it is used in our society.

In today’s high-tech world, let’s learn together so that we don’t get left behind.

Nanophotonic is the nano field of photonics.

Nanophotonic is defined as ‘a technology that utilises energy transfer by near-field light to express optical device functions or perform microscopic processing’, and is within the photonics field that focuses on structures at the nanoscale.

It is characterised by its small size and energy efficiency, and as the name photonics suggests, it is a field of high interest in optical computing research and other areas.

There are many areas that have already been put to practical use in our society or are expected to be put to practical use in the future, which we will look at in the next section.

How nanophotonic is used in society

Nanophotonic is used in areas such as ‘solar cell efficiency’, ‘bioanalytical devices’ and ‘microscopy’.

Improved efficiency of solar cells

In December 2016, Kyoto University and Osaka Gas jointly succeeded in converting thermal energy into light of a wavelength at which solar cells can efficiently generate electricity.

Reference website: 京大ら，フォトニックナノ構造で太陽電池を高効率化

In this research, nanophotonics knowledge was used to improve the efficiency of power generation by forming what is known as photonic nanostructures using silicon.

Bioanalytical devices

Bioanalysis is the detection and analysis of biomolecular interactions.

Nanophotonics has a very important role in the medical field, as it can be applied to elucidate mechanisms such as cancerisation and cell death, and to diagnose infectious diseases.

Bioanalytical devices are devices for bioanalysis, where the use of nanophotonic is being considered.
Although it is still in the development stage, it is said that it will enable more sensitive and more precise inspections than conventional devices.

Microscope

Optical microscopes are often used to observe objects of invisible size.

The ‘near-field light probe microscope’, which uses nanophotonic, is now achieving higher resolution and more detail than conventional optical microscopes.

Nanophotonic applications.

For example, chips used in personal computers (e.g. CPUs) require more power as the amount of data per second increases.

However, the possibility of information transfer by light is said to enable communications that are more energy-efficient than electrical signals.

It is also believed that optical technology computation will have lower latency than electrical technology, and is said to be a powerful tool for servers to process even larger amounts of data than they do now.

Summary

In this article, we talked about nanophotonic.
The key points of this article are as follows.

• Nanophotonic is the nano field of photonics.
• In society, it is used in ‘solar cell efficiency’, ‘bioanalysis devices (development stage)’, ‘microscopes’, etc.
• Nanophotonic is expected to be applied to electronic components in the future.

If you have any problems with research into “nanophotonic”, we at Suga may be able to help you. Please feel free to contact us.