Revision as of 10:29, 26 August 2022

The mechanical to optical and back conversion challenge

Difference in size-scales

Even rather short optical wavelengths (300nm – near UV) are huge compared to carbon atoms ~0.2nm.
That would make an optical diamond fiber with a radius (or side length if square) of ~1500 carbon atoms.

Assembling such bigger structures would be straightforward with convergent assembly though.
Size scale of optical fibers for visible and far beyond is somewhere between

• crystolecular elements ~64nm
• Microcomponents ~2µm
• Mesocomponents ~64µm

Difference in time-scales

Moving charges mechanically back and forth or in circles only suffices for generating and receiving radio frequencies.
See: mechanoradio and radiomechanical conversion.

This to have a bridge between the mechanical world of gemstone metamaterial technology and the optical world
other conversionmechanisms are needed.

• (1) optomechanical conversion where a fast optical electronic excitation eventually causes a slow mechanical conformation change
• (2) mechanooptical conversion where a machanical manipulation excites an electronic state that eventually emits a photon.

(1) is well known today (2) is pretty exotic.

Wild "photonic steampunk" implementation idea (light generation)

The idea is to

• excite long lived (phosphorescent) electronic states on excitation carrier blocks
• carry them over to an optical fiber via attachment chain
• enforce a controlled deexcitation there (posibly in phase doing for lasing)

See main page: Mechanooptical conversion

Direct electromagnetic wave to mechanical conversions (light reception)

This may be:

• to receive data
• to recuperate power (likely more challenging)

Photoinduced conformational changes are likely typically fast and weak.
This seems to call for:

• a photonically induced buildup of tension with many very fast very small increments
• a collective mechanical release of big accumulated tension in a single slow step

(TODO: Investigate almost direct optical to mechanical energy conversion in more detail)

Related

• Photonics
• Fun with spins
• Electronic transitions
• Organometallic gemstone-like compound – tuning of energy gaps discussed there

• Energy conversion – the conversions that have optical on one side
• mechanooptical conversion – this is very new – exciting elecronic stated by force applying mechanic manipulation on bound molecules
• optomechanical conversion – basically photochemistry – causing a conformational change through electronic structure change through optical

• Mechanically stable electronically excited states

• Tailored absorption spectra (aka taylored color), fluorescence, and phosphorescence in:
  Polyaromatic pigments, F-centers in gemstones, ...
• photochromic effects – (like in self-darkening sunglasses)
• thermochromic effects – (like in color changeing paints)

• Color emulation – this page also treats structural color
• Optical particle accelerators
• teraherz gap
• non mechanical technology path

External links

• Photoexcitation
• Category:Photochemistry

• Grotrian_diagram – visualizing the energy levels to see possible transitions and sizes
• Molecular orbital diagram – visualizing how energy levels change (split up) when bonds (in molecules) are formed
• Ligand field diagram (or scheme) – Ligand field theory

• Ultraviolet
• Visible spectrum
• Infrared#Regions_within_the_infrared
• Far infrared