---
title: "Researchers Control Light Wakes for the First Time"
description: "This could lead to new types of plasmonic couplers and lenses that could create two-dimensional holograms or focus light at the nanoscale."
date: "2015-07-07"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Amber Raynolds"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/amber24"
url: "https://futurism.com/researchers-control-light-wakes-for-the-first-time"
categories:
  - "Physics"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "physics"
---

# Researchers Control Light Wakes for the First Time

![Default Futurism featured image](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Futurism-Filler-Image.jpg>)

- For the first time, Harvard researchers have created similar wakes of light-like waves moving on a metallic surface, called surface plasmons, and demonstrated that they can be controlled and steered.
- Surface plasmons are confined to the surface of a metal. In order to create wakes through them, Capasso’s team designed a faster-than-light running wave of charge along a one-dimensional metamaterial — like a powerboat speeding across a lake.
- This research addresses a particularly elegant and innovative problem in physics which connects different physical phenomena, from water wakes to sonic booms, and Cherenkov radiation.