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Blocked holes can enhance rather than stop light transmission
Princeton University ^ | November 22, 2011 | Steven Schultz

Posted on 11/22/2011 11:39:36 AM PST by decimon

Conventional wisdom would say that blocking a hole would prevent light from going through it, but Princeton University engineers have discovered the opposite to be true. A research team has found that placing a metal cap over a small hole in a metal film does not stop the light at all, but rather enhances its transmission.

In an example of the extraordinary twists of physics that can occur at very small scales, electrical engineer Stephen Chou and colleagues made an array of tiny holes in a thin metal film, then blocked each hole with an opaque metal cap. When they shined light into the holes, they found that as much as 70 percent more light came through when the holes were blocked than when they were open.

"The common wisdom in optics is that if you have a metal film with very small holes and you plug the holes with metal, the light transmission is blocked completely," said Chou, the Joseph Elgin Professor of Engineering. "We were very surprised."

Chou said the result could have significant implications and uses. For one, he said, it might require scientists and engineers to rethink techniques they have been using when they want to block all light transmission. In very sensitive optical instruments, such as microscopes, telescopes, spectrometers and other optical detectors, for example, it is common to coat a metal film onto glass with the intention of blocking light. Dust particles, which are unavoidable in metal film deposition, inevitably create tiny holes in the metal film, but these holes have been assumed to be harmless because the dust particles become capped and surrounded by metal, which is thought to block the light completely.

(Excerpt) Read more at princeton.edu ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: stringtheory
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1 posted on 11/22/2011 11:39:39 AM PST by decimon
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To: SunkenCiv; neverdem

Stop gap ping.


2 posted on 11/22/2011 11:40:18 AM PST by decimon
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To: decimon

They are trying to get us to abandon our tin foil hats!


3 posted on 11/22/2011 11:40:53 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: decimon

They are trying to get us to abandon our tin foil hats!


4 posted on 11/22/2011 11:41:05 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: decimon

Brings new meaning to the term “it’s all done with mirrors”.


5 posted on 11/22/2011 11:43:18 AM PST by Da Coyote (Liberalism - when you absolutely, positively have no ability to produce wealth.)
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To: DannyTN

Oh noes its too late for you the government seems to have cloned you already!!!

;)


6 posted on 11/22/2011 11:43:49 AM PST by battousai (Conservatives are racist? YES, I hate stupid white liberals.)
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To: DannyTN

They can have my tin foil hat when they pry it out of my cold dead hands!


7 posted on 11/22/2011 11:43:49 AM PST by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: decimon

DARPA and NSF grantee.


8 posted on 11/22/2011 11:45:55 AM PST by RitchieAprile (Precious little in your life is yours by right and won without a fight..)
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To: cuban leaf

You wear your tinfoil cap on your hands? How odd.


9 posted on 11/22/2011 11:57:33 AM PST by vladimir998 (Public school grads are often too dumb to realize they're dumb)
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To: vladimir998

—You wear your tinfoil cap on your hands? How odd.—

No. OddER. ;-)


10 posted on 11/22/2011 11:58:50 AM PST by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: decimon
"Light" continues to baffle scientists.
It's both a wave and a particle (something can't really be both).
It seems to be able to exceed its own max. speed limit.
And then there's Quantum Mechanics - or maybe there isn't.
What about "gravity" - what is it and what is its origin?
"Science" is certain there is no God, but really isn't certain of much else....
11 posted on 11/22/2011 12:03:16 PM PST by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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To: DannyTN
They are trying to get us to abandon our tin foil hats!

I wear a colander. I'll try blocking the holes to see if more light comes through.

12 posted on 11/22/2011 12:07:01 PM PST by decimon
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To: decimon

Take the spaghetti out first.


13 posted on 11/22/2011 12:12:19 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: decimon

Gee, and my wife thought it was crazy that when I was constipated she could shine a light into my left ear and the beam came out my right ear. That effect when away after I became “unplugged”.


14 posted on 11/22/2011 12:12:59 PM PST by MIchaelTArchangel
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To: decimon
Yes, blocked holes mays things lighter


15 posted on 11/22/2011 12:22:01 PM PST by frithguild (Restricting access to capital - Liberalism: The sharpest tool of big business, banks, etc.)
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To: decimon

with two holes you get interference patterns where half the light will cancel out

block one of them and you get the whole of the light coming through one hole, I have noticed this before too- it seems brighter


16 posted on 11/22/2011 12:34:39 PM PST by Mr. K (Physically unable to proofreed <--- oops, see?)
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To: Psalm 73

“”Light” continues to baffle scientists.
It’s both a wave and a particle (something can’t really be both).
It seems to be able to exceed its own max. speed limit.
And then there’s Quantum Mechanics - or maybe there isn’t.
What about “gravity” - what is it and what is its origin?
“Science” is certain there is no God, but really isn’t certain of much else.... “

I have an atheist brother-in-law. Another is agnostic. They are incessantly quoting “science” (i.e., popular sci-fi) to support their positions. The atheist has a doctorate in mathematics. I love asking him, “So, explain to me again why gravity is so weak?” Light should be simple for a species that has the whole universe figured out.


17 posted on 11/22/2011 12:42:22 PM PST by cizinec ("Brother, your best friend ain't your Momma, it's the Field Artillery.")
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To: cizinec

If you need new questions ask him these:

1. Explain why all planets do not rotate the same way, but some rotate the opposite?

2. Explain why Jupiter has moons that orbit in opposite directions?

3. As gas dissipates in the vacuum of space, explain why the gas giants have not dissipated?

4. Why do some planets have rings and others do not? After “billions of years”?

5. If cosmic evolution is true (big bang, out of smaller elements galaxies, stars and planets form out of these elements), that means from an explosion (disorder) came order (the universe) - yet this is the exact opposite of what we observe in the universe - namely the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, that states over time order degrades into disorder. How do you explain that the theory of cosmic evolution violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics?


18 posted on 11/22/2011 12:50:48 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Mr. K
with two holes you get interference patterns where half the light will cancel out
block one of them and you get the whole of the light coming through one hole, I have noticed this before too- it seems brighter


An interference effect is not what's going on here. They're getting 70% better light transmission with all of the holes blocked. The electric field component of the light is coupled to a surface plasmon in the blocking disk which propagates around the surface of the disk and releases it on the other side. The idea is that the [conductive] blocking disk is acting as an antenna.

Works with light shining from either side, too (which it wouldn't if it were a refractive or diffractive effect).
19 posted on 11/22/2011 1:23:59 PM PST by verum ago (A liberal's mind is like a single action revolver with a bobbed hammer)
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To: decimon

Hey Chou! If the light’s gettin’ through, the hole’s not blocked.


20 posted on 11/22/2011 2:16:27 PM PST by spunkets
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