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Optical Waveguides in Photonic Crystals
KeelSpawn sent in a short article talking about creating the equivalent of etched silicon for light, using a method intended to be cheap enough for commercial applications.
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Although this is obviously aimed at more "business-productive" markets, I'd be interested to see how (or if) this technology affects the entertainment industry. Just yesterday, on the star wars topic, we saw lots of good banter about DLP, which is made up of millions of minature mirrors. I wonder if technology like this could take the mechanics out of something like DLP. Or perhaps, on a further refinement, this technology could supercede the entire concept of things like galvanometers in things like laser shows.
The major obstacle here seems to be cost, but what if making the waveguides so small wasnt the challenge?
This too shall pass.
Sad I missed that on the Star Wars thread, as I have a DLP projector for my home theater system and therefore some hands-on experience from them. Anyway, what can be said about them is;
- less color saturation than LCD projection (colors are not as vivid)
- no burn-in (as opposed to LCD)
- better longevity of colors (no fade over time)
- MUCH better brightness, in fact, black becomes dark-grayish (this is a problem)
- bulbs cost you an arm and a leg
- less need for cooling => less noise
- crispness is so good you have to deliberately DE-focus to get a good movie viewing experience
Everything of course from my own personal experience with them. I could recommend a DLP projector to anyone who wants to set up a home system.
The article really didn't mention any specific applications of the technology. I assume this would be aimed toward optical processors, but does anyone know any links to more information on that kind of application?
Unless an invention comes from IBM I just assume it is vaporware or that it won't be invented until some company with a lot of capital comes in and buys it. Now if MS buys the technology to make 10+ ghz chips and then bundles them together with their software then we are in trouble. With a proprietary CPU 5 times faster even XP will run faster then the leanest self compiled Linux kernel.
It should be noted that photonic crystals are not actually as strong as what one might think. By keeping the material in a frozen state, the item becomes increasingly more fragile and diminnishes it's ability to reflect sound waves - HOWEVER, Just the oppostite will occur when heating up to over 50'C - The item will then start to amplify that original sound. Quite amazing isn't it?!
jESUS the Monkey
If you can replace the cpu with an optical chip clocking at the same speed or faster, you would avoid issues like heat, because the photons don't encounter things like electrical resistance. So you don't need a fan now. And you probably could seriously boost the clock speed. The better this manufacturing process gets, the closer you get to a machine you don't hear. No fans and flash memory sounds like a wearable computer as strong as a pc. And the price is dropping.
one two three four five ?!! That's the combination on my luggage!