MIT researchers and collaborators have developed a new class of photonic devices that efficiently beam light from a chip into free space using microscopic curved structures resembling ski jumps. Built from silicon nitride and aluminum nitride layers that curl upward due to differential thermal expansion, these structures allow thousands of individually controllable laser beams to be projected off the chip simultaneously. The platform demonstrated full-color image projection at extreme resolution (30,000 pixels in the space of two smartphone pixels) and precise control of diamond-based qubits for quantum computing. Potential applications include AR glasses, compact Lidar, high-speed 3D printing, and large-scale quantum computers.
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