EU-funded scientists have created an antenna that captures light in the same way that TV and radios aerials capture signals. The device is an outcome of the Bio-inspired molecular optoelectronics (B1MORE) project, which received nearly €3 million under the Marie Curie Research Training Networks mobility scheme of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Researchers led by condensed matter physicist Professor Doug Natelson and graduate student Dan Ward from Rice University in the US have developed an optical antenna from two gold tips separated by a nanoscale gap - about a hundredthousandth the width of a human hair - that gathers light from a laser. The tips grab the light and concentrate it into a tiny space, said Natelson, leading to a thousandfold increase in light intensity in the gap. His team discovered that the key to measuring light amplification was measuring the electrical current between the gold tips.
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