Chip Can Project Video the Size of a Grain of Sand

Researchers from MITRE, MIT, University of Colorado Boulder, and Sandia National Laboratories have developed a 1-square-millimeter photonic chip capable of projecting 68.6 million individual light spots per second — over 50 times more than previous MEMS micromirror arrays. Originally designed to control nitrogen-vacancy qubits in a diamond-based quantum computer, the chip uses microscale piezoelectric cantilevers that curl out of the chip plane and steer laser beams across a 2D area. It has successfully projected video and images like the Mona Lisa onto areas smaller than two human egg cells. Beyond quantum computing, potential applications include augmented reality, biomedical imaging, 3D printing acceleration, and lab-on-a-chip systems.