Guest post by “They said it could be done and now they’ve done it. What’s more, they did it with a GRIN. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, have carried out the first experimental demonstration of GRIN – for gradient index – plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast computers based on light rather than electronic signals, ultra-powerful optical microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, and ‘invisibility’ carpet-cloaking devices.”