Unexpected Plasmonic Discovery: Terahertz Waves Travel Slower When Sent Down Smaller Wires

Frequently, the unexpected results in science are the most exciting. That's the case with the latest findings from the lab of Rice University's electrical engineer Daniel Mittleman, who was trying to find new ways to use terahertz energy, or T-rays, for chemical sensing when he noticed a strange tendency of the signals to travel slower if they were sent down smaller metal wires.