"NANOTECH: Sapphire taper spawns silica nanowire"
A nanowire manufacturing method has yielded 50-nm optical cables &3151; one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair � by drawing a millimeter-sized silica wire across a sapphire taper. Since the nanowire's 50-nm diameter is as much as one-third the size of the wavelength of light going through it, light spirals around the outside of the fiber (rather than inside it) with minimal signal loss.
Audio Interviews / Text: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20031218S0022