The device you are currently sitting on, whether it be a phone, a tablet, or a laptop, is at its core made of a tiny switches that are turned on and off by electrons at extremely high rates. These 'on' and 'off' states are what occur when you look at the base of a code and see a 1 - on - or a 2 - off. As technology improves, however, we are reaching the limit of how fast these switches can be turned on and off - that is, the passage of electrons through wires is no longer fast enough. Currently, we solve this in personal laptops by making the switches smaller and adding more of them. In supercomputers, we cool the computers down and use rare metals to create superconductors; thus decreasing the resistance of the wire for the electrons and increasing the electrons velocity.
This sort of improvement, however, is finite and innovation is needed. Although one up-and-coming and viable option is quantum computers (discussed in other blog posts) another is to change the medium through which we manipulate the switches. This is to say, replace electrons with something that moves even faster: Photons.
This, unsurprisingly, has certain barriers to overcome before it can become a reality. Optical computing, fortunately, has come one step closer to reality with an innovation made by the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. There, researchers have created a light source that can switch on-and-off 90 billion times per second using plasmonics. Plasmonics occur "When a laser shines on the surface of a silver cube just 75 nanometers wide... [then] the free electrons on its surface begin to oscillate together in a wave. These oscillations create their own light, which reacts again with the free electrons. Energy trapped on the surface of the nanocube in this fashion is called a plasmon."
After thus exciting the silver nanocube, the electromagnetic field created reacts with two layers that are nearby: a gold sheet ~20Agstom away and a quantum dot layer that is placed between the silver nanocube and the gold sheet. The quantum dots in this middle layer emit light that can be turned on and off 90 billion times a second.
Clearly, this is an innovation that will be of service to even the average consumer. It is yet another example of how influential and important nanotechnologies will be in our future.
To learn more, click here!
This sort of improvement, however, is finite and innovation is needed. Although one up-and-coming and viable option is quantum computers (discussed in other blog posts) another is to change the medium through which we manipulate the switches. This is to say, replace electrons with something that moves even faster: Photons.This, unsurprisingly, has certain barriers to overcome before it can become a reality. Optical computing, fortunately, has come one step closer to reality with an innovation made by the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. There, researchers have created a light source that can switch on-and-off 90 billion times per second using plasmonics. Plasmonics occur "When a laser shines on the surface of a silver cube just 75 nanometers wide... [then] the free electrons on its surface begin to oscillate together in a wave. These oscillations create their own light, which reacts again with the free electrons. Energy trapped on the surface of the nanocube in this fashion is called a plasmon."
After thus exciting the silver nanocube, the electromagnetic field created reacts with two layers that are nearby: a gold sheet ~20Agstom away and a quantum dot layer that is placed between the silver nanocube and the gold sheet. The quantum dots in this middle layer emit light that can be turned on and off 90 billion times a second.
Clearly, this is an innovation that will be of service to even the average consumer. It is yet another example of how influential and important nanotechnologies will be in our future.
To learn more, click here!
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