Nanoscale "˜abacus' does maths with pulses of light
Device is able to carry out addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using picosecond light pulses
An international team of researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Exeter in the UK, and Munster in Germany, have developed a nanoscale optical "˜abacus' "“ which uses light signals to perform arithmetic computations.
The innovative device works by counting pulses of light before storing the data. This pioneering new technique could pave the way to new, more powerful computers that combine computing and storage functions in one element "“ a move away from conventional computers that treat these two functions as separate.
The study was published on 2nd November 2017 in Nature Communications.
Exeter Univerity's C David Wright, an expert in electronic engineering and co-author of the study said: "This device is able to carry out all the basic functions you'd associate with the traditional abacus "“ addition, subtraction, multiplication and division "“ but what's more it can do this using picosecond (one-thousandth of a billionth of a second) light pulses".
Lead author of the study, Wolfram Pernice from the Institute of Physics at Muenster University in Germany added: "In the article we describe for the first time the realization of an abacus which operates in a purely optical way. Rather than wooden beads as found on traditional abacuses, our innovative device calculates with pulses of light "“ and simultaneously stores the result."
The team's optical abacus, which is so small it's essentially invisible to the naked eye, is installed on a photonic microchip that can be easily manufactured. So far, the researchers have succeeded in calculating with two-digit numbers using two photonic phase-change cells, but the extension to large multi-digit numbers simply involves the use of more cells.
Co-author Harish Bhaskaran, from the University of Oxford, added: "Computing with light "“ and not with electrons, as is the case with traditional computers - means that we can develop much faster systems which can be connected using integrated optical waveguides."
The project was funded by the German Research Foundation and the UK's EPSRC.
