Ultrafast Optical Switch

Indian researchers have made ultrafast optical switches using double-walled carbon nanotubes. They used pristine and molybdenum filled double walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs) suspended in heavy water. Such designed DWNTs show excellent ultrafast optical switching properties using extremely short pulses of energy that lasts for 50 femtoseconds.

One femtosecond is a millionth of a nanosecond, which is one billionth of a second. DWNTs, two carbon atoms thick, yet conduct electricity. This quality makes them well-suited for advanced solar panels, sensors and a host of other applications. The findings of the study have been published in the 26th August 2009 issue Applied Physics Letters.