A pc that makes use of mild fairly than electrical energy to transmit and manipulate knowledge may perform the identical duties quicker and utilizing much less energy
Technology
9 December 2022
Yi Zhang with the optical pc Yi Wang
A brand new sort of pc that makes use of mild fairly than electrical energy may carry out calculations quicker, utilizing much less power and fewer house.
Computer chips are made up of thousands and thousands or billions of logic gates. These tiny elements perform probably the most fundamental of operations, akin to checking if one bit of knowledge matches one other. It is by combining these gates in huge numbers that duties like downloading a file, enjoying a video or operating a pc recreation are managed.
Traditional chips work by ferrying electrons, however Yi Zhang at Aalto University, Finland, and his colleagues have managed to create optical logic gates that carry out the identical features with mild.
Optical computer systems have been created earlier than, however they contain complicated {hardware} and are restricted to sure functions. Zhang says these new gates could be constructed from a single layer of molybdenum disulphide crystals simply 0.65 nanometres thick utilizing current manufacturing strategies they usually may very well be designed to hold out common duties in a small package deal.
Because photons transfer quicker than electrons do in a circuit, this might pace up calculations, and since additionally they transfer with out resistance, they may do the identical job utilizing much less power.
The staff’s strategy makes use of circularly polarised mild. This includes a lightweight wave that seems to spin round its axis of journey, turning both clockwise or anticlockwise. A conventional bit in a pc is made up of a constructive or unfavourable electrical cost – represented by 0 or 1 – however on this new optical pc, bits are represented by both clockwise-polarised mild or anticlockwise-polarised mild.
In the optical pc, the logic gates are constructed from crystalline supplies which might be delicate to the route of spin of those polarised mild beams. Using optical filters and different elements, these gates could be constructed as much as recreate conventional gates.
The staff demonstrated working optical gates that recreate the normal gates generally known as XNOR, NOR, AND, XOR, OR and NAND, which all perform totally different operations on knowledge. The researchers additionally confirmed that these operations could be carried out on knowledge in parallel fairly than in collection, which may doubtlessly pave the best way for large enhancements within the effectivity and pace of calculations.
“We hope that all-optical computers can be made in the future,” says Zhang. “The biggest advantage is the super fast speed of optical chips over traditional chips. In addition, light has the ability of parallel processing and has less energy consumption, while electronic devices consume more energy due to resistance.”
Zhang says future work will examine how optical logic gates may very well be used to create both hybrid classical and quantum computer systems or to create optical quantum logic gates. This is as a result of one widespread department of quantum computing analysis already makes use of photons to transmit knowledge.
Journal reference: Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq8246
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