New Materials May Allow One-Way Light

[n2doc]

Normally, a glass window doesn’t care where a ray of light came from. But special kinds of glass or plastic could be a bit pickier.

Nonlinear materials could distinguish between two rays of light coming from opposite directions, say two Italian physicists. Blocking a ray from one direction and allowing in a ray from the other could be useful for making a one-way street for light.

Textbook optics prohibits this kind of directional discrimination. Everyday linear materials are governed by the reciprocity theorem, which says that a beam of light coming from the left will pass through and reflect off a material in the same way as a beam of light coming from the right.

But nonlinear materials, which can change as light passes through them, play by different rules.

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/one-way-light/

[damntexdem]

1. Perfect for rightwing press briefings: different rules for left and right.

;-)

[DCKit]

2. Yeah, 'cept they don't believe in "science". nt

[dimbear]

3. Very useful for making perpetual motion machines too.

Just put a black body in a chamber surrounded with one way reflectors and watch it heat up.

[Ready4Change]

4. Looks like a logical 'Or' to me.

Wonder if they can finagle an 'and' out of that?

[Occulus]

5. What would be the implications of optical and/or/not gates? n/t

[BadgerKid]

6. Optical computers.

We already have optical data transmission such as optical fiber networking. I'm not sure what the hardware of an "optical computer" would be, but when talking about light, there is the possibly that effects of interference patterns might be needed to be considered.

Here's something to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing