The immediate opportunity to have a technical impact is if one could design more effective magneto-optical materials, says Dr Murray.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Silicon photonics made with inexpensive silicon rather than expensive and exotic optical materials provides a distinct cost advantage over older optical technologies in addition to providing greater speed, reliability and scalability benefits.

ENGADGET: Facebook's Open Compute Project splits up monolithic servers with help from Intel, more

Many optical components are typically constructed using materials such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.

WSJ: IBM Claims Breakthrough in Laser-Based Chips

They consist of two interlaced materials that have different optical properties in particular, different refractive indices, a measure of how much a substance bends light.

ECONOMIST: Microelectronics grows up

Research into materials such as Kevlar, optical fibre and steel is at the heart of the business.

ECONOMIST: Italian textiles and China

Some experts in the field seriously question whether it is possible to develop materials capable of perfect lensing at optical frequencies.

BBC: Last Updated: Monday, 8 March 2004, 09:03 GMT

Most usefully, the ability to make stuff with atomic precision will allow scientists to produce materials with improved, or new, optical, magnetic, thermal or electrical properties.

ECONOMIST: Small wonders