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Optical Computing Author: Dr.T Sunday, 21 April 2002, 21:52 GMT Contributed By: - Due to many recent questions based in Optical computing, I am releasing this article for those who would like to know more. Advances in computing are increasing at an astounding rate, as soon as you've got your new Athlon XP 2100 out of its box, a faster processor is released.... but how long can this last? There is a law called Moore's law - this states that computing power doubles every 18 months - and so far this isn't far from the truth. Current processor advances are largely based on miniturisation - the smaller the circuits within the processor the shorter distance the electron has to travel. Currently die sizes of 0,13 µm are being achieved allowing for lightning speed.... but where does it stop? there is a limit to the size that can be achieved, this is where Optical computing comes in. Optical computing is based upon light instead of electricity, this can enable speeds a hundred million times faster, and its only with recent advances that this can be made possible. Recent discoveries have allowed light to be stopped, stored, and further more - released upon command. This kind of control of light paves way for advanced optical computing, currently we use optics for data transmission as with the internet, however the use of this was limited. Without control of light and methods to move and store it efficiently, there wasn't much room for expansion. Unlike a copper cable, which sends electricity one pulse at a time, optical fibers can transmit several pieces of data as waves of different colors of light which can travel down a fiber simultaneously. That's much faster. So when will we see optical computers? Scientists are saying that current materials require far too much power to be regarded as viable for a desktop computer, and it may be another five years before such materials are developed, so expect a wait of around 10 years before there is a hint of optical computing. "Optically, we can solve a problem in one hour which would take an electronic computer 11 years to solve," said Hossin Abduldayem, a senior research scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Links: Paper by Nasa Light Speed offers amazing power Sit, Speak, Good photon

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