Optical computing uses light instead of electricity to perform calculations, but requires more power over short distances. It has potential for large supercomputers and could be faster than current computers. Harvard researchers have found a way to flip a log using a single photon, a milestone for efficient optical computation. The technology is still in the research and theory stage, and its long-term success remains to be seen.
Optical computing is a computer technology in the research and theory stage. The idea would be to create a computer that relies entirely on light (photons) instead of electricity (electrons) to perform calculations. The appeal of optical computers is limited, because over short distances they require more power than electronic computers to perform the same calculation. However, optical computing can enable the physically impossible to build computers using electronics. Optical computing is still in the early stages of development: currently only a few very limited prototypes have been built in the laboratory.
An optical computer mainly uses lasers to send signals. Unfortunately, lasers cannot directly interact with each other in any meaningful way, so performing calculations requires some intermediary in the form of matter. Attempts to make “optical transistors” have tended to revolve around materials that selectively re-emit light in response to the intensity of incoming light. Putting these components together in a huge network can allow the construction of an optical computer.
Until now, optics has been enthusiastically adopted for data transmission over long distances, such as in optical fiber. Over short distances, however, and this is one of the major disadvantages of optical computing, the energy loss suffered by light requires more power to send a signal than using electrons to send the same signal over the same distance. Over long distances, light wins, but part of the point of computers is that they should be small, and the distances over which light is best (10ft/3m or more) are pretty large by computing standards. However, it is conceivable that optical channels could be used in large supercomputers to send data more efficiently than electronics.
In theory, optical computing could produce computers tens of thousands of times faster than today’s computers, because light can travel much faster than electric current. In practice, however, the need to use large beams of light to avoid signal loss has precluded this possibility. More recently, however, Harvard University researchers have found a way to flip a log using a single photon, a milestone that could pave the way for efficient optical computation. The researchers exploited plasmons, small surface disturbances in a medium that can be created by bombarding it with photons.
Optical computing, like quantum computing, is one of those wildcard technologies: it’s one of dozens of approaches being developed in anticipation of bumping into physical limitations with conventional electronic computing, but whether it will bear fruit at all remains to be seen. long term. Unless you’re working on the technology yourself, all we can do now is wait and watch.
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