• Design nanoscale antennas for optical communications.

• Nanolink devices could revolutionize communications in future nanochips.

• CESGA infrastructure contributed to the calculations needed in development.

The Universities of Extremadura and Vigo have designed a nanolink that would solve the interconnection and warming problems in future optical integrated circuits, or nanochips.

In the current prototype used for future nanochips or silicon plasmonic guides for transmitting data at high speed using light beams. The problem is that these guides carry large energy losses and bulky. This space and high heat dissipation limit the capacity integration and miniaturization in nanochips. The work avoids the use of these guidelines, to be replaced by a new concept in optical communications: link directive beams with nanoantennas, or nanolink.

This type of links, after dominating for decades in radio frequency and microwave telecommunications, are about to revolutionize optical communications. The fundamental challenge for application at these frequencies, a part of the technological difficulties involved in their manufacture, lies in the electromagnetic behavior of plasmonic nanomaterials that have to interact with light. This behavior is very different and much more complex possessing the same materials to conventional frequencies. The University of Extremadura and Vigo have shown that plasmonic response calculated accurately using rigorous electromagnetic simulation tools and the use of supercomputers, classical electromagnetic theory and knowledge gained over decades of development in the field of radiofrequency and microwaves can be applied to the design of new nanotechnology applications.

The application used for this, HEMCUVE + +, has been continuously developed by the University of Extremadura and Vigo for more than 13 years. This tool is the fundamental quality of combining high accuracy in calculations with the efficient use of large supercomputers. For this reason, in 2009 they were awarded two prestigious international awards for this contribution to the introduction of supercomputing in electromagnetism. This time, we used the supercomputer Extremadura Lusitania, the Cenits, and FinisTerrae supercomputer, CESGA, for the design of the various components of optical nanoenlace.

The current study, published recently in the international journal Optics Express, the Optical Society of America, has been funded by the National R & D and European FEDER funds. It has also received funding CONSOLIDER TeraSense project and funded by the Government of Extremadura. The original work is available through the link: http://j.mp/nanolink