University of Pennsylvania scientists have theorized a way to increase the speed of pulses of light traveling in nanoparticle chains (acting as miniature waveguides) to 2.5 times the speed of light by altering the particle shape.

As the velocity of the light pulse increases, so too does the operating bandwidth of a waveguide, thus increasing the number of information channels and allowing more information to flow simultaneously through a waveguide.

They found that shaping the particles as prolate, cigar-shaped or oblate, saucer-shaped spheroids boosted the velocities of surface plasmon pulses reflecting off the surface to 2.5 times the speed of light in a vacuum, while decreasing power loss.

Application of this theory would use nanosized metal chains as building blocks for novel optoelectronic and optical devices, which would operate at higher frequencies than conventional electronic circuits. Such devices could eventually find applications in the developing area of high-speed optical computing, in which protons and light replace electrons and transistors for greater performance.