For the first time, a group of scientists from the University of Sydney has managed to take advantage of an acoustic circuit to store data in an optical medium. That means reducing even 100,000 times the nimbleness of data telecast without losing information. The specialists indicate that this is a very important development. But why do we want a system that slows down the agility of transmission?
For electronic computers to go down in history. It’s that simple. Nowadays, inside every computer there are hundreds of thousands of electrons “storing and processing data”. That was revolutionary, but it has limitations. Limitations that quantum computing can solve: we are facing a step that can be key.
The optical future of post-electronic computing
Image Credit: http://sydney.edu.au
The limitations of electronic machines are main facts of the lines of research in computer science. In addition, the Australian equipment has been engage many years to solve it. Looking for the longed optical computer.
Photons are very fast for our microchips and slowing them down can be major task. Researcher faced losses of information and the generation of heat from electron-based systems, light (photon-based systems) seems some excellent alternative. At the theoretical level, the photons not only do not generate heat, but would allow to increase even twenty times the potential of our computers.
Its liveliness (as evidenced by the fiber-optic cables that communicate us on an intercontinental level) is well-known. In fact, they are very fast. We do not have microchips that can process information at that speed. That’s where the development of Moritz Merklein, Birgit Stiller and Benjamin Eggleton comes in.
The Photonic Microchip
Researchers say it’s like “the difference between lightning and thunder”
The goal of achievement is the equipment is to create a photonic microchip that acts as an “acoustic buffer” and “improves your ability to control information in various orders of magnitude.”
While the light would take between 2 and 3 nanoseconds to pass through the chip, with the recent system it takes about 10 nanoseconds which allows our systems to process it. In addition, the retrieval of the data was very accurate.
It is a very smart step because it draws a future in which we can have all the good things of an optical computer (more speed, less heat, or electromagnetic interference) with our current microchips.
But unfortunately, it is still a long way from real computing (and even supercomputing). The most optimistic estimates give 5 to 10 years of work before being able to see these microchips in operation. The future is still far away.
