Japanese scientists cage light

[bascule]

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/12/21/japanese_light_trap/

 

Quantum computers move one step closer

[jck]

Hi bascule,

 

I had read previously that light had been stopped but interesting anyway. I would say this is a step towards optical computing rather than quantum computers as they require an in-between-state to operate.

 

john

jck

[EvoN1020v]

How about this article from the January 2007 Discover Issue?

 

Laser-Emitting chips Promise Ultrafast Computers by Curt Suplee

 

Nothing is faster than light. So for decades engineers have tried to accelerate the pace of conventional, electricity-based computer chips by melding them with laser-based signal processors (like those used to send Internet data blazing through fiber-optic cables). In September researchers from Intel Corp. and the University of California at Santa Barbara announced they had found a promising way to achieve that long-sought goal.

 

The corporate and university teams set out to develop a hybrid design that could handle both electricity and light. They bonded a thin layer of indium phospide, a compound that acts as a medium for the laser, onto sillicon sheets by exposing both materials to a blast of hot, electrically charged oxygen atoms; the indium phosphide was spiked with aluminum gallium indium arsendide to give it added speed. A microlayer of oxides then formed on the two surfaces, gluing them together. "We can make thousands of lasers with just one bond, as opposed to bonding each laser individually," says John Bowers of UC Santa Barbara, coinventor of the new device.

 

When energized by electrical current, the bonded layer produces light that travels through channels in the sillicon to a "modulator" that flickers the light tens of billions of times per second. A couple dozen lasers switching at this speed could handle a trillion bits of information per second - more than 100 times as fast as current sillicon chips. What wonders will such power bring? For one thing, Bowers and his team say, by the end of the decade their new chips could make it possible to download a feature-length movie in just a few seconds.

 

There is a picture of the new hybrid sillicon chips and there's a caption below and it says, "Sillicon-laser hybrid chips could make computers 100 times faster".

 

 

This looks like a promising new technology for computers, eh?

[Rocket Man]

"the indium phosphide was spiked with aluminum gallium indium arsendide to give it added speed." like painting a car red...

 

I suppose the electrical systems have limits imposed by magetic feilds etc, optic switching is very promising

[Rexus]

"the indium phosphide was spiked with aluminum gallium indium arsendide to give it added speed."

 

*brain seizure

[GutZ]

wow...you think will ever see a Quantum computer in our life time? I am so pissed at all the amazing stuff I am going to miss out on.

[Sisyphus]

I am so pissed at all the amazing stuff I am going to miss out on.

 

Just think how the ancient Sumerians must have felt.

[spikerz66]

so should i postpone getting a new laptop untill next year?

[Pre4edgc]

Well, I'm pretty young, so I hope to see it. Own it, or even use it. That'll be pretty cool, but at the rate they're going at, I give it ten, maybe twenty years. Not bad, but i could be wrong. This is for mass production though.