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Laser Clock Generates One Trillion BPS

Posted by timothy on from the get-there-on-time dept.

FunkyELF writes "Professor of optics, electrical and computer engineering and physics Peter Delfyett, Jr., of the School of Optics CREOL, has developed a laser-driven clock that is smaller than the head of a pin, with applications in computers as well as general timekeeping. One of many fascinating things going on at The University of Central Florida"

3 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Nice, by Trusty+Penfold · · Score: 5, Funny


    but I bet it still manages to fuck up daylight savings time.

  2. NY Times Story by infernow · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a link of for this story on the NY times at the bottom of the page.
    I figure i'd post it here for reference:
    And here it is.

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    that that is is that that is not is not

  3. Mercury Ion clock + Broadband, here I come. by Nyphur · · Score: 4, Informative

    When reading up on the atomic clock on this site, I read mention aobut the mercury ion clock which would be, when finished, 1000 times more accurate than the standard caesium atomic clock: http://whyfiles.org/078time/2.html

    More competition for the new laser-clock, but at 1008 Billion signals per second, I see a major advantage in his laser-research.

    Peter Delfyett's area of focus is "increasing the speed of fiber-optic systems" because, according to his research, in the current fibre-optic system:

    "beams from several separate lasers, each costing about $1,000, send light wavelengths at the same speed at the same time down the line and the total speed is calculated by multiplying the number of wavelengths by their pulse rates."

    Delfyette's current area of research led him to use a "mode-lock laser". This is used to "control the timing and the number of wavelengths that are simultaneously generated"

    If you can't see where I'm going with this, think about fibre-optic communications, particularly Fibre-Optic Broadband. This new system can generate 1008 Billion signals per second, each signal having the ability to carry one digital bit, and all this from just one laser, instead of many expensive, bulky convergance lasers. The implications of Peter's new laser-research include the fact that if you had a single fibre-optic fibre for broadband internet access, it would give you a maximum download speed of 120162.9638671875 Megabytes per second, unless I'm mistaken which I could be because my mathematics isn't the best. At any rate, it's much faster than today's fibre-optic broadband connections. Also, since the fibre-optic lines themselves need not be changed, only new laser-systems installed, this technology could be implemented into all current major fibre-optic networks.

    I can see Peter's research coming in very handy in the future of land-based communications.

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