https://phys.org/news/2018-07-silicon-nanoparticlephotonic-waveguide.html

Now, Reuben Bakker, Arseniy Kuznetsov and their colleagues at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute have come up with a more efficient method that involves a string of cylindrical silicon nanoparticles. The first nanoparticle is excited using light and then a near-field scanning optical microscope measures the light that reaches another nanoparticle further down the line (see image). When they did this, the team found that the fall in the light intensity was low.

"This is the first experimental demonstration that shows coupled resonators can very efficiently guide light at strongly sub-wavelength dimensions and over lengths of several hundred micrometers," says Kuznetsov. "It's the first step toward a completely new approach to silicon photonics."