Negative Refractivity for Optical Computing

zero_offset writes "This article in EE Times details Purdue's efforts to create a material with negative refractivity. One of the important results would be the ability to create optical computers due to the effect's tendency to amplify and focus light at wavelengths larger than the thickness of the nanowires used in the transmission system. Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering's Vladimir Shalaev says, "Using these plasmonic nanomaterials, we hope to directly manipulate light, guide it around corners with no losses and basically do all the fundamental operations we do with electronic circuits today, but with photons instead." Nanowires, surface plasmon polaritons, optical computers, nanoscale metamaterials, unnatural refractivity -- what's not to like?" We did a story on the first material known to have a negative index of refraction last year.

Comments

Moore's Law

[RobertNotBob]

Well, there goes Moore's law out the window.

I guess it has a bit of life left in it, but with the article talking about 'single molecule' focal points. I geuss we are about to run into a little wall if these ever actually make it to market.

Of course, with the computational power that will come of this, maybe we will be satisfied for a while. Somebody once said "Nobody will need more than 640 k of RAM" Right?

And as always...

[Steve Franklin]

Nobody has given the least thought to what they are going to do with all this peculiar junk after it gets to the end of its useful life. Just dig a big hole like any good primate and throw it in, right?

Dr. Frankenstein lives on.