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Industry Newss Industry News
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ULTRAFAST OPTICAL

NEW DRONE SYSTEM TO SWITCHING USING

PREDICT TRANSMISSION ATOMICALLY THIN

LINE FAILURES MATERIALS

Researchers at Hanyang University in Korea have Using multimodal data, the system reconstructs A team of physicists at the University of Oldenburg
created a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to the geometric profile of transmission lines and in Germany has created a nanostructure of silver
monitor power transmission lines and provide early measures sag under real operating conditions. and an atomically thin semiconductor layer that
warning of impending failure. Thermal imaging is used to map line temperature, can be transformed into an ultrafast switching
enabling the assessment of how lines could mirror device that can function as an optical
The approach, which integrates multiple
deform under extreme heat, heavy load or other transistor.
sensors incorporating 3D LiDAR, GPS, inertial
environmental stresses. The system then calculates
measurement units and thermal cameras, allows Potentially this development could enable the
“infringement zones” by comparing sag profiles with
for the simultaneous measurement of line sag and creation of optical components that can operate up
the surrounding landscape so as to produce metrics
environmental infringement. It aims to eliminate the to 10,000 times faster than current transistors, offering
such as intrusion depth and affected length in order
costly, time-consuming and sometimes hazardous new possibilities for data processing, sensing and
to prioritise maintenance.
on-site inspections that have been traditionally quantum technologies.
required, making it a world first. Reference: ‘Hanyang University unveils Drone System to predict
Transmission Failures’, iot Insider, November 2025 The objective was to discover a material the reflective
properties of which could be manipulated or
‘switched’ within a few femtoseconds by means of a
highly focused laser beam ( a femtosecond being
one millionth of a billionth of a second ). spectroscopy, or 2DES, which made it possible to
observe quantum physical interactions with a time
A grid of parallel grooves of approximately 45 resolution of just a few femtoseconds.
nanometres was milled into the surface of an ultra-
thin silver “nano-slit array”, after which a team at Professor Dr. Christoph Lienau of the University of
Oldenburg explains:
Cambridge University applied a monolayer of the
semiconductor crystal tungsten disulphide, which “ Taken separately, neither of the two materials
was just three atoms thick. Light that hits the surface exhibits a switching effect. However, when
is then able to be stored in a hybrid quantum state combined in a hybrid nanostructure they react very
known as an exciton-plasma polariton for around differently to light, turning into what is known as an
70 femtoseconds before being reflected. In this ‘active metamaterial’.
state, which exhibits properties of both light and
In the current study, we were able to investigate a
matter, the light propagates across the surface of
metamaterial for the first time by using light pulses
the semiconductor layer in the form of plasmon
that were shorter than the observed switching
waves, producing a strong interaction with the bound
process.
electron-hole pairs of the semiconductor layer, the
excitons. Our findings are of particular interest if we want
to make ultrafast light switches on the nanoscale.
An external laser pulse was used to modify the With these switches, the amount of information
strength of the interaction between the excitons that can be transmitted per unit of time would
and the plasma waves, with the brightness of the increase dramatically “.
reflected light being able to be changed by up to
Reference: ‘European Scientists achieve ultrafast Optical Switching
10 per cent in the initial experiments. This effect was using Atomically Thin Materials’, Optical connections News, 23rd.
then investigated using two-dimensional electronic January.

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