MY NOTE: THIS IS TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN USING GOOGLE TRANSLATOR, MY APOLOGY FOR ANY ERRORS.
Semiconductor with light: only in one direction Duch permeable (Image: Caltech / Feng)
Optical isolator successful
Replaced by controllable power semiconductor light
San Diego / Vienna (pte012/05.08.2011/12: 35) - An advance in combining electronics with light has researchers at the California Institute of Technology http://caltech.edu succeeded. In the journal "Science" it more present a photonic semiconductor diode that transmits light in one direction only. That part could be an important component of optical computers that process data faster and cheaper than before. "The path to optical computing is still far, but is at least necessary for the insulator is now," said Karl Unterrainer, Chief Executive of the Institute of Photonics of the University of Vienna http://photonik.tuwien.ac.at , compared with press text.
Optical fiber instead of copper
Light pulses are in the computer technology already in use, such as in fiber optic cable. For processing in semiconductors, but they must be converted into electrical impulses, thus slowing the flow of data. Photonics researchers are working so long on chip components that absorb the light pulses and processed directly. Are approaches for the separation of these pulses it already, but with quirks that magnets are bad for light polarization, nonlinear materials for frequency change hardly combine with silicon.
"We want to reproduce the entire electronic chip on a photonic chip," says study leader Liang Feng, the target. Previous silicon fiber failed because the light signals through reflection and superposition weaken each other. Feng fiber supplements a 800 by 200-nanometer silicon beam with round pieces of germanium, silicon and chromium, that put the light propagation direction depending on vibrate. Signals to pass in one direction and thus be attenuated in the other.
Cracking the terahertz border
The potential for future computers, called photons Unterrainer as "enormous," especially with regards to their speed. "Copper lines to bring large losses at high frequencies, which is why today's motherboards allow no more than four gigahertz. Terahertz Optical computers could crack the barrier." Energy efficiency is another advantage, since the transmission of light signals, no electricity needed. In addition, optical chips can also integrate sensors, displays, cameras and projectors.
Nevertheless, much remains the future, relative to the Viennese physicist. "It would be important not only to replace the electrical lines on chips by light lines, but to perform all optical transistors." Also the size is still a problem for the implementation - but measure photonic semiconductor is a multiple of the electrical semiconductors, which rank at about ten nanometers.
Abstract of the original article under http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6043/729
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