An international team of scientists led by the Australian National University has created a nano antenna that promises ultra-fast rendering of high-definition graphics on gaming consoles. It could lead to the end of an era for slow image rendering.

ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering nonlinear physics centre Professor Dragomir Neshev said the invention may mean his 10-year-old son grew up without long, frustrating loading times — the bane of all impatient players

To create high definition, photo-real graphics computers had to perform calculations and exchange of data at rapid speeds.

"One of the big problems that gamers encounter is sluggish game play, which our nano device could greatly improve by speeding up the exchange of data between the multiple processors in the console," senior researcher Professor Neshev said.

"The speed of this data transfer is currently limited by the speed that electrons can flow along the copper wires connecting the processors in gaming consoles.

The invention provides a solution to these transfer bottlenecks.

"Our invention can be used to connect these processors with optical wires that will transmit data between processers thousands of times faster than metal wires. This will enable smooth rendering and large-scale parallel computation needed for a good gaming experience."

ANU collaborated with international institutions on the research which was published in Science Advances.

The new nano antenna technology has applications beyond gaming and can improve speed and function in all high-performance parallel computing.

Professor Neshev said the beauty of the nano antenna was it was compact and increased speed without the need for high-cost materials.

The team behind the project hope to see it commercialised soon.

"The big companies are releasing consoles with optical links and I think our technology will transform these current state of the art tools to something more compact and more accessible to every gamer," professor Neshev said.