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Researchers build optical transistor out of silicon, provide path to all-optical computing
The speed of light is the universal speed limit, so naturally, optical technologies appeal when trying to construct speedy computational devices. Fiber optics let us shoot data to and fro at top speed, but for the time being our CPUs still make their calculations using electronic transistors. Good news is, researchers from Purdue University have built an optical transistor out of silicon that can propagate logic signals -- meaning it can serve as an optical switch and push enough photons to drive two other transistors. It's constructed of a microring resonator situated next to one optical line that transmits the signal, and a second that heats the microring to change its resonant frequency. The microring then resonates at a specific frequency to interact with the light in the signal line in such a way that its output is drastically reduced and essentially shut off. Presto, an optical transistor is born. Before dreams of superfast photonic computers start dancing in your head, however, just know they won't be showing up anytime soon -- the power consumption of such transistors is far beyond their electronic counterparts due to the energy inefficient lasers that power them.
MIT slinks into a cafe, orders a side of photonic chips on silicon
Whiz-kids the world over have been making significant progress on the development of photonic chips -- devices that "use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their computational tasks." But now, MIT has taken the next major leap, filling in "a crucial piece of the puzzle" that just might allow for the creation of photonic chips on the standard silicon material that underlies most of today's electronics. Today, data can travel via light beams shot over through optical fibers, and once it arrives, it's "converted into electronic form, processed through electronic circuits and then converted back to light using a laser." What a waste. If MIT's research bears fruit, the resulting product could nix those extra steps, allowing the light signal to be processed directly. Caroline Ross, the Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, calls it a diode for light; to construct it, researchers had to locate a material that was both transparent and magnetic. In other words, a material that only exists in the Chamber of Secrets. Hit the source link for the rest of the tale.
Optical 'diode' lends hope to photonic computing, rayguns
The trouble with pesky Photon, at least as far as ultra-fast optical computing is concerned, is that he keeps coming back. If a data-carrying beam of light collides with reflections bouncing around between the components of a chip, it can suffer enough interference to make people yearn for the good old days of electrons. What's needed is the optical equivalent of a diode, which only allows light to pass one way, and that's exactly what researchers at Caltech and the University of California claim to have developed. As you'll see in the photo after the break, their metallic-silicon optical waveguide allows light to travel smoothly from left to right, but it breaks up and dissipates any photons traveling in the opposite direction. This is all good, because there's no point having futuristic 50Gbps optical interconnects if our CPUs lag behind. Light up the source link for a fuller explanation.
University of Central Florida's miniature laser diode aims to speed up networking
The use of laser as a means of data transmission is hardly anything new, but the current crop of laser diodes can only handle so much stress, provided that they don't fail in the first place. Luckily, the geniuses over at the University of Central Florida are about to deliver a smaller yet more intense and more reliable diode, which will lead to many more potential applications even beyond the scope of networking -- think cheaper, more effective hair removal. Little is said about how Professor Dennis Deppe's team made this possible, but once they work out how to optimize the operating voltage for better efficiency, Deppe reckons we'll see diode-embedded high speed, high bandwidth cables in the shops in four or five years' time. Seriously, we'd do anything to keep our latency low for some HD gaming action.
UK research team brings quantum computing closer than ever... or so they say
You know the drill -- some quirky research team whips up some phenomenal discovery in the middle of nowhere, gloats about it, gets it published in a journal you've never heard of it, and then it all vanishes into the ether, leaving your soul hurt and wondering why you ever got your hopes up in the first place. The Foundations wrote a little tune about this very situation back in 1968, but a UK team from the Center for Quantum Photonics led by Jeremy O'Brien are claiming that their latest discovery is no joke. According to him, most people have believed that a functional quantum computer wouldn't be a reality for at least another score, but he's saying "with real confidence that, using [his] new technique, a quantum computer could, within five years, be performing calculations that are outside the capabilities of conventional computers." The center of this bold claim is a new photonic chip that works on light rather than traditional electricity, and those who built it say that it could "pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously." Of course, this stuff would hit the Department of Defense long before it hits your basement, but it's on you to keep tabs on the progress. Wouldn't be let down again, now would we?
Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link shines a light on future computers (video)
Using copper cables to transfer data around a computer? Get your head out of the sand, Grandpa! Intel thinks that's on the outs and is touting its recent accomplishments with Silicon Photonics and integrated lasers, using light pulses to move data at 50Gbps (last time we heard Intel tout the tech was when it hit 40Gbps speeds in 2007). The emphasis is on low-cost, high-speed fiber optics, the removal of cable clutter, and with the speed boost, the ability to try new system designs by being able to space chips and components farther apart from one another without as much hit on speed -- all theoretical at this point, of course. Researchers hopes to hit terabit per second speeds further down the line. As for John Q. Consumer, enjoy the progress from afar but don't count on seeing this technology hit Newegg anytime soon. Video after the break.
Take a voyage to... er, to the Discovery
Activate your holoemitters and prep your photonic crew, because the ship class that Star Trek: Voyager built is headed to sector near you. The Discovery is the next generation of long-range science vessels, and wow does its design shout it loudly. We're going to overlook the fact that, from the front, the ship looks a lot like a muffin due to its warp foils, and move right on ahead to how cool the rest of the ship looks from other angles.Although, with the ability to fully customize your ship, we suppose plenty of players will opt for a less bakery inspired frontal appearance purely through coincidence. Plus, there's also the yet-to-be-revealed Cochrane variant as well.Also, don't let the big blue deflector array fool you into thinking this ship is equipped with some kind of super weapon. Being a science vessel, the Discovery is much more adept at advanced tech, and as such can hone in on an enemies weakness right quick. Who needs heavy weapons when you've got an Achilles heel detector? Heck, this baby can even detect some cloaked ships -- take that, sorta, Klingons!
Photonic breakthrough could mean 60x faster internet speeds
Every so often, we get wind of some new "breakthrough" from a few guys / gals in a lab that promises to simply revolutionize the web. A team from the University of Sydney is the latest bunch to do so, claiming that a piece of scratched glass (or a Photonic Integrated Circuit, if we're being proper) could enable internet speeds 60 times faster than "current Australian networks." Essentially, the "circuit uses the scratch as a guide or a switching path for information," and the resulting product is "photonic technology that has terabit per second capacity." Call us when you folks get everything ironed out -- we'll be over at Sigbritt Löthberg's house.[Via The Future of Things, thanks iddo]
Photonic goes 1.0
The last time that we took a look at Flickr upload utility Photonic, it was still in beta. Photonic's developer Barton Springs Software has just released Photonic 1.0 -- a major step up from the beta. In addition to the various bug fixes, Photonic also received the following features: The ability to add favorites and photosets New option to send FlickrMail to the owner of a picture via a contextual menu on photos in a stream New option to go to the photo's page is now a contextual menu Drag and drop images to the application icon or to the source list to add the image to your upload queue Double click now zooms in on image rather than going to Flickr Set favorites on Flickr now New tabbed preferences window New preference for the number of concurrent downloads (previous default was 3) Possibly the best new feature that has been implemented for 1.0 is the full screen preview. You can now see your (or your friends) Flickr photos full-screen; this is really handy for when you want to show off a set of pictures. Photonic is available as a trial download from the developer's website, and it's currently purchaseable at a special price of $20 until March 15th.
Flexible displays created by stretching crystals
As researchers continue to forge ahead in their quest to create commercially viable flexible displays, a new team from Canada has apparently unearthed a breakthrough of sorts. Reportedly, the crew has been able to conjure up a full-color display which boasts pixels made from photonic crystals, and by "bonding them to an electroactive polymer that expands when a voltage is applied to it," the colors of the pixels change. According to André Arsenault of the University of Toronto, the newfangled devices "can be viewed just as well in bright sunlight as in indoor light," and if all goes as planned, we could be seeing a whole lot more of these promising units "in as little as two years" when the startup Opalux looks to fit these bendable creations into billboards, handheld gadgetry, and anything else it deems fit.[Image courtesy of MSNBC, thanks Alan]
