Light – a particle, yes, but one of the most complicated in the universe. It moves so fast that it’s hard to treat it like one, and mot much else can move as fast. In order to harness and study it, researchers at the University of Rochester have found a way to do the next best thing: Using genetically-inspired silicon nanocavities, they’re able to contain light in an incredibly tiny space for nanoseconds.

That may not sound like much, but it’s a 10x improvement over previous experiments. Light would typically travel several meters in the nanoseconds for which it’s contained, but researchers are able to constrain it to an area roughly one hundredth the width of a human hair.

“Light holds the key to some of nature’s deepest secrets, but it is very challenging to confine it in small spaces,” says Antonio Badolato, professor of physics at the University of Rochester and corresponding author of the Applied Physics Letters paper. “Light has no rest mass or charge that allow forces to act on it and trap it; it has to be done by carefully designing tiny mirrors that reflect light millions of times.”

The ability to trap light is far from just a novelty – besides being better able to manipulate it, scientists are also able to study it at the fundamental level where it actually behaves as a particle.

The team’s method of creating the improved nanocavities is impressive. Using an algorithm that operates similar to natural selection in nature, individual nanocavities combine and create a new one that’s a cross between the two “parents.” The algorithm, acting in its God-like role, selects the most effective based on how long they can contain light.

Integrated nanophotonics is a new and rapidly growing field of research laying at the intersection of photonics, nanotechnology, and materials science. In the near future, nanophotonics circuits will enable disruptive technologies ranging from telecommunications to biosensing, and because they can process pulses of light extremely fast and with very low energy consumption, they hold the potential to replace conventional information-handling systems.