<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The average photon speed is </span><a href="http://www.sciencealert.com/light-based-laptops-will-run-at-least-20-times-faster-than-yours?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">20 times that of an electron's</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and thus a photonic processor, which handles digital data as light instead of electrons, would have the potential to run at least 20 times faster than your current devices. In addition, </span><a href="http://www.sciencealert.com/breaking-light-was-just-stored-as-sound-for-the-first-time-ever"><span style="font-weight: 400;">photonic computers</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">:</span></p><p><div data-conversation-spotlight=""></div></p><ul class="ee-ul"><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Require far less energy to operate, saving your battery’s life.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are not vulnerable to or affected by electromagnetic interference.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do not produce heat, drastically reducing the possibility of </span><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12841342/why-do-phone-batteries-explode-samsung-galaxy-note-7"><span style="font-weight: 400;">overheating and exploding</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></li></ul><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The notion of a photonic computer is generally consigned to the realm of science fiction, because light travels </span><a href="http://www.sciencealert.com/breaking-light-was-just-stored-as-sound-for-the-first-time-ever"><span style="font-weight: 400;">way too fast for existing microchips to read</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. However, a </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00717-y"><span style="font-weight: 400;">team of research scientists at the University of Sydney</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, never discouraged by the impossible, have taken one step closer to creating the first light-based computer by converting light into sound. Sound travels slower than light, but faster than electricity. This is why we see the flash of lightning before hearing the rumble of thunder. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Even though we already use photons in telecommunications — i.e., fiber optics — at the microchip level, that data is converted into electrons before entering the processor. While the Sydney researchers were not able to create a chip that processes photons, they were able to create the next best thing: a chip that slows down light by </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00717-y"><span style="font-weight: 400;">converting it into sound waves</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. In their </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00717-y"><span style="font-weight: 400;">published findings</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, they call the process “chip-integrated coherent photonic-phononic memory” — a memory storage system that converts light to sound on a photonic microchip.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By converting light to sound, the data slows down enough for a computer to interact with it. “The information in our chip in acoustic form travels at a velocity five orders of magnitude slower than in the optical domain,” </span><a href="http://www.cudos.org.au/news/2017-09-18-cudos-researchers-storing-lightning-inside-thunder.shtml"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> project supervisor Dr. Birgit Stiller. “It is like the difference between thunder and lightning.” </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Building an acoustic buffer inside a chip improves our ability to control information by several orders of magnitude,” </span><a href="http://www.cudos.org.au/news/2017-09-18-cudos-researchers-storing-lightning-inside-thunder.shtml"><span style="font-weight: 400;">added</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> lead author Moritz Merklein. But we are still years away from seeing photonic chips in our personal devices, as the technology is still in the development stages and at this time is unable to store the acoustic data long-term. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“For this to become a commercial reality, photonic data on the chip needs to be slowed down so that they can be processed, routed, stored and accessed,” </span><a href="http://www.cudos.org.au/news/2017-09-18-cudos-researchers-storing-lightning-inside-thunder.shtml"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Merklein. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">ScienceAlert provided a 30-second animation video explaining the new light-to-sound data conversion and why it cannot yet work for long-term memory storage:</span></p><p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7baec765b048ad5eae9c258483491cce"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zCdviPEhsyY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p><ol class="ee-ol"><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">First, </span><b>photonic data</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> enters the chip as a </span><b>pulse of light</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The data light pulse interacts with a “write” light pulse, </span><b>producing an acoustic wave</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The acoustic wave is then stored on the chip as data.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The acoustic data can be </span><b>stored for 10 nanosecond</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">s, long enough to be retrieved and processed.</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Finally, a “read” pulse of light enters the chip and </span><b>converts the acoustic wave back into a pulse of light</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and the data is retrieved.</span></li></ol><p><b>You can read the Sydney team’s published findings </b><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00717-y"><b>HERE</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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