University of Utah Engineers Create World’s Smallest Beamsplitter
As computer technology is forging ahead, the demand for processing information at ultra-fast speed is also increasing. Scientists believe that silicon photonics has the potential of improving performance and speed of the machines such as supercomputers, data center servers, et al. Instead of using electrons for transferring and manipulating information, this technology uses photons of laser light. The engineers from University of Utah have taken a step in the direction of developing computers and mobile devices that could compute information at the speed of light i.e. millions of times faster than present-day machines.
Utah engineers have designed an integrated-nanophotonics polarization beamsplitter on top of a silicon chip that can divide incoming light waves in two. As a result of that, two distinct channels of separately polarized information are generated. The extremely small beamsplitter is the world’s smallest polarization beamsplitter having size of just 2.4 by 2.4 microns (approx. one-fiftieth the width of a human hair). By applying the new nonlinear optimization algorithm, the researchers were able to scale down the size of the device from 100 by 100 microns to 2.4 by 2.4 microns. This will help the researchers in devising silicon photonic chip to direct light waves in different ways and to pack millions of beamsplitters on an individual chip.
According to Professor Rajesh Menon, Electrical and computer engineering associate, the information is transferred by photons of light over internet via fiber-optic networks. However, the information is converted to electrons when it reaches a home or office destination before the machines can handle it, thereby reducing its speed. The vision of the researchers is to keep everything in light even within computer processors.
Other than speed, the design would not be expensive to produce owing to the use of existing fabrication techniques for making silicon chips. Furthermore, the smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, et al with this technology would consume less power, and dissipate less heat than present devices.
The team believes that its beamsplitter could be used in the supercomputers in about three years which are being developed by the companies such as Intel and IBM by employing the emerging silicon photonics technology. It can also be used in data centers that require faster connections. The research paper was published in the journal Nature Photonics.
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Utah engineers have designed an integrated-nanophotonics polarization beamsplitter on top of a silicon chip that can divide incoming light waves in two. As a result of that, two distinct channels of separately polarized information are generated. The extremely small beamsplitter is the world’s smallest polarization beamsplitter having size of just 2.4 by 2.4 microns (approx. one-fiftieth the width of a human hair). By applying the new nonlinear optimization algorithm, the researchers were able to scale down the size of the device from 100 by 100 microns to 2.4 by 2.4 microns. This will help the researchers in devising silicon photonic chip to direct light waves in different ways and to pack millions of beamsplitters on an individual chip.
According to Professor Rajesh Menon, Electrical and computer engineering associate, the information is transferred by photons of light over internet via fiber-optic networks. However, the information is converted to electrons when it reaches a home or office destination before the machines can handle it, thereby reducing its speed. The vision of the researchers is to keep everything in light even within computer processors.
Other than speed, the design would not be expensive to produce owing to the use of existing fabrication techniques for making silicon chips. Furthermore, the smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, et al with this technology would consume less power, and dissipate less heat than present devices.
The team believes that its beamsplitter could be used in the supercomputers in about three years which are being developed by the companies such as Intel and IBM by employing the emerging silicon photonics technology. It can also be used in data centers that require faster connections. The research paper was published in the journal Nature Photonics.
Source: #-Link-Snipped-# | #-Link-Snipped-#
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