EDFA

Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers are basically optical fibers with a little Erbium doped in it, along with a little external circuitary, used to amplify signals directly in the optical domain without any conversion into the electrical domain. The concept is quite simple, it consists of using a small loop of optical fiber, doped with Erbium, and pumped by Laser Drivers at about 980nm, coupled with the input signal. The result of this is that the Erbium ions get converted into the 4I13/2 state via the 4I11/2. When the signal photons strike these ions, then stimulated emission occurs, sending these back to the ground state that is 4I15/2, and at the same time emitting photons of the same frequency, thus we get additional photons of the same frequency thus causing gain in intensity. You can find more on this at http://www.rp-photonics.com/erbium_doped_fiber_amplifiers.html
This concept revolutionised the world of optical communication, by providing a means to bypass the electronic circuitary to amplify optical singnals, thereby providing a much more efficient system. This was developed in the late 1980s and by early 1990s it was already in use in most optical communication systems. Probably the next big thing in communication may be another step towards the elimination of electronics, i.e. optical processors or the like, leading to faster systems and making quantum computing a possibility.

Chaos

Recently I had the fortune of getting my hands on a copy of "CHAOS" by James Gleick. Reading it opened up a whole new horizon in my search for pure science. Since childhood, I've been facinated by various aspects of Science, particularly the many facets that physics offered, be it the infinite realm of Astrononmy or the infinitesimal one of the atomic structure, they have all been objects of my attention. Till recently I was completely ignorant of the beautiful world of chaos, the purest union of mathematics and physics, which I must say had many purists calling for blood. The book artistically develops various aspects of Chaos, and creates a beautiful landscape of the chronology of the developments which have led to the creation of chaos theory as we know it today. The compounding effect of the slightest disturbance is one which truly wakes on up...and rather rudely, I must add. Ever since I've read this, I've started questioning everyone of my actions, like, should I switch of the light, should I watch television...and also, should I update my blog :)...

Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is a new perspective to the world we live in. It is probabilistic approach to the deterministic world of information. We are using the coherent, probabilistic, parallel world of quantum mechanics to overcome the computational needs of modern world. Most important factor in development of this field is keen interest shown by scholars and scientist in this field. Although, there are many difficulties in actual realization of a quantum computer and replacing classical computers. We may also emphasize that a quantum computer is more efficient in terms of power consumption also as signals of computation are not electrical but optical. Basic boons of quantum computation are entanglement and parallelism due to superposition. These properties are being exploited in development of quantum algorithms that are feasible to run on our modern day computers also. Quantum algorithms are much more efficient in complexity of time. We are leading to development of quantum hardware (ion trap) that will be many times more efficient but consumes

Entanglement and Universe

If a molecule somehow emits two photons then these two photons will be correlated. If you manipulate the sate of one photon ten the state of other changes instantaneously , independent of space .
So,broadly any two entangled objects violate the great Theory of Relativity.But,where does this violation lead to?
So far we believe in the idea of big bang and atomic universe,Scientist have also thought of universe as a quantum object.
If our universe is a quantum object then there is a huge possiblity that our universe may be an entangled pair or entangled group of universes.So,even a slight chnage in quantum state of our universe will reflect in the quantum state of our parallel universes(String Theory).
Hence,we conclude that whatever happens to our universe may be a result of some event that ocurred in the universe parallel to ours which in turn affects our life.

Metamaterial

A metamaterial (or meta material) is a material which gains its properties from its structure rather than directly from its composition. To distinguish metamaterials from other composite materials, the metamaterial label is usually used for a material which has unusual properties. The term was coined in 1999 by Rodger M. Walser of the University of Texas at Austin. He defined metamaterials as Macroscopic composites having a manmade, three-dimensional, periodic cellular architecture designed to produce an optimized combination, not available in nature, of two or more responses to specific excitation.
Among electromagnetics researchers, the term is often used, quite narrowly, for materials which exhibit negative refraction.
The first metamaterials were developed by W.E. Kock in the late 1940s with metal-lens antennas and metallic delay lenses.
Courtesy : Wikipedia.com

Physics and Engineers

We all know that engineering is a derivative of Physics,but what actually is required is conversion of physics into engineering.
Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity,a physical phenomenon but later we went on to use this physics to apply to almost every part of our lives.
Similarly we all reasearch for newly discovered physical phenomena and apply them to practicality.This is the soul reason of research in engineering .
Some of the latest in world is-
Free space Optical communication
Nanophotonics
Quantum computing
Meta materials
Carbon nano tubes
and many more will continue...