Until recently, it was thought that Nature had seemingly placed restrictions on the size to which light can be concentrated. Now, researchers from Xiang Zhang’s group at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of California at Berkeley have discovered a new way, not only to break down this physical limitation, but to sustain it for longer distances than ever achieved. The hybrid plasmonic waveguide, which is reported in the August 2008 issue of Nature Photonics (published July 11th online), does essentially the same job as an optical fiber, carrying optical information from one point to another. However, this discovery is particularly exciting as it marks an emphatic departure from once perceived limitations. “Hybrid plasmonics” removes the notion of size limitations in optics and, in doing so, opens the door to exciting applications that take advantage of nanometer-sized optical signals, such as nanoscopic lasers, new approaches to manipulating quantum information and the possibility of computers based purely on light.