swastika

[Guest guest]

> Dr Darren Bagnall from the School of Electronics and

> Computer Science (ECS) at the University of

> Southampton has found that he can arrange tens of

> thousands of gold swastikas on a square millimetre

> to

> form new optical metamaterials that act to

> artificially change the polarisation of light,

> effectively "twisting" light in accordance with the

> rotation of the swastikas. By changing the degree of

> twist in a predictable way the chiral metamaterials

> can provide an alternative way to code information

> that is being transmitted using light.

>

> According to Dr Bagnall, it is the special

> arrangement

> and squareness of the swastika which makes it the

> ideal geometry for their experiments. He comments:

> "The swastika has a number of special features, it

> is

> entirely made up of vertical and horizontal straight

> lines and it is square but can still provide the

> feeling of left-handed or right-handed rotation

> known

> as chirality. It is this chirality which causes our

> swastikas to twist light."

>

>

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/physik_astronomie/bericht-40833.h\

tml

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