10 Sep Towards optical logic gates
The development of logic gates, in which signals are transmitted using photons instead of electrons, is a long-cherished wish in the area of integrated circuits. Currently, the underlying circuits are a complex, networked system of logic gates that generate binary input and output signals. The controlled signal carriers are the electrons.
Reading, writing and erasing
An international co-operation between researchers from the physics and chemistry departments at the University of Bayreuth and the physical chemistry department at the University of Melbourne in Australia has succeeded in coming one step closer to achieving this goal. The researchers have realised optically switchable photonic units that enable precise addressing. According to the partners, this should allow binary information to be reliably stored and read optically.
According to the team, they were able to carry out hundreds of purely optical read, write and erase cycles on a grid of microstructured polymer spheres, in which the letters of the alphabet were written one after the other in the same place on a microstructured arrangement.
Dr Pankaj Dharpure (left) and Dr Heyou Zhang are postdocs at the University of Bayreuth involved in the project. In the background is the experimental setup. Image: University of Bayreuth
Photons are superior
Light offers more possibilities for multiplexing than electrons, the researchers explain. ‘With light, you can use not only the signal strength, i.e. the number of photons, but also the wavelength, i.e. the colour or frequency, or the polarisation to differentiate between signals,’ says Professor Jürgen Köhler from the Chair of Soft Matter Spectroscopy at the University of Bayreuth. In the very distant future, this could one day form the basis for new photonic logic gates and microchips.
Source and image: www.uni-bayreuth.de
