A long-standing limitation in photonics may be giving way to a new regime of light control.

Photonic technologies have struggled to shrink at the same pace as electronics. The limitation comes from basic physics. The uncertainty principle links how tightly light can be confined to its wavelength, which in the visible and near-infrared range can be up to a thousand times larger than the de Broglie wavelength of electrons used in circuits. As a result, photonic chips remain relatively large, and optical imaging faces strict resolution limits.