Optical effects
Contents
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
- Ligand field theory
- 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
- 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
- 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
