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World's Smallest Optical Switch Uses a Single Atom (gizmag.com)

Posted by timothy on from the that's-not-how-the-rules-work dept.

Zothecula writes: The rapid and on-going development of micro-miniature optical electronic devices is helping to usher in a new era of photonic computers and light-based memories that promise super-fast processor speeds and ultra-secure communications. However, as these components are shrunk ever further, fundamental limits to their dimensions are dictated by the wavelength of light itself. Now researchers at ETH Zurich claim to have overcome this limitation by creating both the world's smallest optical switch using a single atom, and accompanying circuitry that appears to break the rules by being smaller than the wavelength of the light that passes through it.

21 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Not that impressive by Ecuador · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not that impressive, other optical switches don't require a CPU at all, never mind an Atom!

    (Yeah, I know, Title Case. Still doesn't help me parse correctly sometimes)

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  2. limit by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    That's cool, but my understanding is that the limit on processor speed isn't the switching speed, we've had transistors that switch at 600GHz for a while now. The problem is making good wires to connect them together, while dissipating heat.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:limit by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      That's cool, but my understanding is that the limit on processor speed isn't the switching speed, we've had transistors that switch at 600GHz for a while now. The problem is making good wires to connect them together, while dissipating heat.

      Well, no. The problem is that was a PoC, and they hadn't even developed a single multi-gate circuit by the time you posted that article. We do not have 600GHz transistors. They are coming, eventually. Even when they do, they may or may not be good for making VLSI ICs with, which remains to be seen. Maybe they'll only be useful as signal amplifiers in the end, and we'll have to go optical to improve computing performance.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:limit by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      "We do not have 600GHz transistors"
      We have faster transistors man

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:limit by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Also interesting, but also a lab project. It takes considerable time for a research project to become a process technology.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:limit by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Also interesting, but also a lab project.

      Well yes, if it weren't, then I'd be typing to you right now from my computer that is two orders of magnitude faster than my current computer. Which would be beautiful.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  3. Great news by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 2

    for people who find really tiny switches a huge turn-on

    1. Re:Great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well I don't care much for tiny switches but I am hugely turned on by things which use a single atom.

    2. Re: Great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You received a one for that pedantic critique?

  4. All of this research and talk by BlytheBowman · · Score: 1

    yet when can I go down to my store of choice and pick up an optronic computer? Or even an optronic Casio watch?

  5. welcome back, bro by BigDukeSix · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Offtopic, perhaps, but I'm looking at the front page of Slashdot. For the first time in years, no fucking political/sociological/pseudo-tech clickbait bullshit. Finally.

    If this is the new boss, I'm all for it. I care a lot about politics, privacy, and economics. I come to Slashdot for other stuff.

    Thanks.

    1. Re:welcome back, bro by dinfinity · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Although I personally don't mind Slashdot straying slightly into more 'stuff that matters' than 'news for nerds', I would not at all miss all the clickbait articles, the rile-em-up-articles, the terrible teaser non-summaries and all the other disgraces to this community we have been experiencing for months and months now.

      So yes, seconded. Crossing my fingers and hoping Slashdot is indeed back to greatness!

  6. Big deal by SETY · · Score: 2

    I actually read the article. This seems like a pretty big deal. The megahertz switching speed is the only negative.

    1. Re:Big deal by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Not even. The bandwidth gain alone from this even in the megahertz range is nuts. Let us see if this thing can handle multiple wavelengths simultaneously.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    2. Re:Big deal by MattskEE · · Score: 1

      It's great work, very fascinating. The speed can probably improved up to a point but it could be a valuable technology based only on the energy per bit switching event, since this sets the energy limit for a given piece of computation.

      A more important challenge is integrating this into a circuit and figuring out how to get electrical signals into optical switches based on the output of an optical switch. Transistors are great since they are electrical input and output, and with complementary logic they only draw a leakage current except while they are switching. But a voltage controlled optical/plasmonic switch is strictly speaking a transducer and so you need it paired with the inverse transducer element to create cascadable elements. And you need something supplying the light. And while there is a small switching element there is a (comparatively) huge waveguide feeding structure. So solving these issues and making sure that you don't get huge energy losses when you add the pieces surrounding the switch element, and figuring out how to combine large numbers of elements onto a small chip is the bigger challenge for bringing this into a computing application. Or maybe it can make a very energy efficient optical modulator, not used for computation.

  7. So this atom switch... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    Is it binary (on/off) or cat (alive/dead/both)?

    1. Re:So this atom switch... by KGIII · · Score: 2

      We won't know until we read the article!

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  8. Tech Article Sins by hackwrench · · Score: 1
    Quick! Someone form a Tech Article Sins (if one doesn't already exist... I think a Cracked video hinted at the existence of one) and count up the number of "Sins" this article racks up. They are doing very well at the "describe a limiting factor using vague words" game, similar to the pronoun game.
    "break the rules"
    "fundamental constraints"
    "hitherto unlikely"

    Alright, so I've finally come across details that draw into question the article's assertion of an "optical switch using a single atom and accompanying circuitry", Some of us when thinking of an optical switch would consider some of the things they put in the "accompanying circuitry" column, port of the optical switch.

    "Until recently, even I thought it was impossible for us to undercut this limit," said Professor Leuthold."

    ...Is not a follow-up to a quote by anyone on the team as to what limit he is referring to.

    According to this article, all atoms are the same size, apparently.

    There are a number of other sins, but I'm done with typing right now.

  9. Re:And since it breaks the laws of physics... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe instead you should be questioning whether the statement that it breaks the laws of physics... which too many news articles seem to write using intro level physics at best, or at worst just gut intuition.

    Things smaller than the wavelength interact with light all the time, whether antennas that are much smaller than the wavelength they are send/receiving, or individual atoms emitting and absorbing light. There is even a whole area of research with near field microscopy. Now there are some limits to efficiency of coupling to waves of much larger size in simple situations, but often those limits are specified for linear optics cases, and get much more complex in nonlinear cases.

  10. Moore's law by Grindalf · · Score: 1

    Does this mean that there is a limit to Moore's law, or will someone figure out how to go subatomic?

    --
    The purpose of existence is to make money.
    1. Re:Moore's law by Bob_Who · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sub-atomic is the future of getting small. Ironically, its the next big thing.