Exotic nanodevice could let computers ditch slowpoke electrons and run thousands of times faster [Mad Engineering]

Modern computers have faith in electrons moving through wires to transmit information, that is far, far slower than the quick-as-light optics we theoretically should be would becould very well be using. And now we\’ve found the exotic material that will allow us to depart electrons behind.

Electrons could be the lifeblood of computer communications, but they’ve a grimy little secret: they\’re actually pretty damn slow. Scientists and engineers wish to switch to completely optical communications, which can, naturally enough, travel at the rate of light. The current target is called \” wireless interconnecting\” , through which information is communicated at speeds 100 to one,000 times faster than is possible with current electronic technology.

The main hurdle isn\’t transmitting the information from one point to another – it\’s creating a receiver that will understand the info as fast as it\’s sent. Since the one signal processing we currently understand is electronic in nature, it doesn\’t matter how fast the optical communications are because all that fast-moving data will come screeching to a halt when it reaches its destination. But if we will have the ability to build optical emitters and detectors, then we\’d enter an age of computers in a position to terahertz speeds. For comparison, modern computers top out at just some gigahertz, a thousandth of what possibly possible with fully optical computing.

That\’s where a tiny, nanoscale device created from the compound gallium aresenide comes into the picture. A research team from Oregon State University, the University of Iowa and Germany\’s Philipps University have discovered these little devices can handle terahertz pulses for extraordinarily short stretches, letting them process and control electrical signals in a semiconductor.

That means they\’re fast enough to do the job of optical computing, and now it\’s just a query of refining them to be able to handle the task for longer periods. In addition they have to determine tips to make the stuff work at higher temperatures – the experiments were performed within the super-coolant liquid helium, which isn\’t really a realistic casing for the typical computer user.

Still, the researchers feel cautiously confident they\’ve created what they call \” the first building block of optical signal processing.\” There are many potential applications for this, including in video and audio devices that may make use of the greater speeds optical communications provide. But the true next step might be putting terahertz processors to work in quantum computers, which would wish to be phenomenally fast anyway. Gallium arsenide might just be exactly what\’s required.

[Solid State Electronics]

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