Israeli Scientist Helps Unlock New Possibilities for Light-Based Technologies

(Aug. 6, 2026 / JNS) An Israeli researcher has helped develop a breakthrough optical technology that can steer and reshape beams of light in just 74 femtoseconds—74 quadrillionths of a second—a development that could advance future optical computing, communications, imaging and sensing systems.
The ability to control light underpins technologies ranging from cameras and sensors to communication systems and advanced computing. However, the components used to direct and shape light typically operate far more slowly than light itself. The new study presents a way to overcome this limitation through a programmable ultra-thin optical surface capable of redirecting and reshaping a beam of light in just 74 femtoseconds.

Dr. Lior Michaeli, head of the Meta-Optomechanics Laboratory at Tel Aviv University’s Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, co-authored the study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Nanotechnology. The research demonstrates a new ultra-thin optical surface capable of controlling light almost instantaneously.

The research was carried out at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the group of Prof. Harry Atwater. It was led by Dr. Claudio Hail, now a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-authored by Michaeli.

At the heart of the breakthrough is a metasurface—an ultra-thin material layer covered with precisely engineered nanoscale silicon structures smaller than the wavelength of light. When illuminated by a short laser pulse, the silicon structures temporarily change their optical properties, allowing the surface to rapidly alter the path and shape of another light beam without moving mirrors, lenses or other mechanical components.

In laboratory experiments, the researchers steered the beam by angles of up to 13 degrees in either direction. By changing the spatial pattern of the illuminating pulse, they were also able to reshape the beam and create different light patterns. In other words, the same device can perform different optical functions depending on how it is illuminated.

“The key idea was to create a metasurface whose optical response is not fixed once it is fabricated,” Hail said. “By changing the illumination pattern, we can reconfigure how the device steers and shapes light, and do so on an ultrafast timescale.”

Atwater explained that controlling one beam of light with another has historically been difficult because light interacts only weakly with most materials.

“Light usually interacts only weakly with matter, so controlling one beam of light with another is extremely challenging,” he said. “The metasurface enhances that interaction, allowing a very small and very fast material response to produce a useful change in the outgoing beam.”

Michaeli said the project demonstrated how a theoretical concept could become an experimental reality.

“For me, the most exciting aspect is seeing an idea that had been with us for years become an experimental reality,” he said. “The ultrafast effect we wanted to use is naturally very weak. We had to design the metasurface so that it would amplify the effect enough not only to measure it, but to use it to steer and shape light.”

The measured switching time was close to the duration of the laser pulse itself, suggesting that even faster operation may be possible with shorter pulses. The device also has no moving parts and returns rapidly to its original state once the pulse has passed.

Today, many systems that use light for communication still rely on converting optical signals into electrical signals for processing before converting them back into light. Faster, programmable optical control could eventually reduce this need and allow more information processing to take place directly with light.

“This work points to a broader opportunity: using engineered structures to strengthen interactions between light and matter and turn them into tools for control, sensing, and information processing,” Michaeli said. “This is closely connected to research directions we are now pursuing at Tel Aviv University.”