Optical Computing Even Closer?

Computers function through electrical impulses that trigger either a "1" or "0" input to the electronic component. The problem is that as computers speed up, the electrons moving within them generate heat within the electronic components, reaching an upper computing threshold based upon the conducting materials used. For years, there has been talk of computers that function on different mechanisms - ceramic computers, quantum computers, DNA-based computers, and optical computers ... computers which would, ideally, be able to function on a level far surpassing that of electronic computers.

Optical computers would function by channeling coherent laser light, using it to perform the calculations currently performed by electrons. Some recent findings (see About Physics blog articles Super Light Sensitive Molecules and Optical Transistors) have suggested that this may be a possibility.

Now Intel engineers & researchers have created a silicon-based optical modulator, which can split a laser beam into a series of pulses that would act as the "1" and "0" do in modern computers. Similar processors work in long-distance communication systems, but are made of much more costly components. The new modulator can run at 30 Gigabytes per second (Gb/s), which is triple the speed of the fastest optical modulator previously known ... and researchers think it can be increased to 40 Gb/s.

Read more about the new modulator in Science magazine, "Computing at Light Speed."

One place for more information on photonics is PhotonicsConnection, a new site created by Tower Optical Corporation, or check out About Physics: Light & Optics for more general information.