Why aren’t holograms or related optical devices part of our everyday lives yet? The technologies can be created by using magnetic fields to alter the path of light, but the materials that can do that are expensive, brittle and opaque. Some only work in temperatures as cold as the vacuum of space.
Minjeong Cha, MSE PhD Student, applies a gel made up of chiromagnetic nanoparticles that are a conduit for modulating light to a laser apparatus. Image credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering
Now, researchers from the University of Michigan and the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil have demonstrated that inexpensive nanoparticles in a gel can replace traditional materials at a drastically reduced cost. And their approach works at room temperature.