A new optical-based communication tool can transmit data in a fast circular motion like an eddy current. This optical advancement described in a study published recently in the journal Science may become a core component of the laser pointer for next-generation computers to meet the growing demand for information sharing in human society. It may also eliminate concerns about the failure of Moore’s Law-Moore’s Law believes that researchers will find new ways to continue to make computers smaller, faster, and cheaper.
For decades, researchers have been working to integrate more components into silicon-based computer chips than before. Their success explains why today’s smartphones have higher computing power than the world’s most powerful computer in the 1980s, and when the cost of supercomputers at that time was converted into today’s currency, it would reach millions of dollars It is huge, and its size is similar to that of a large file cabinet.
But researchers are facing a bottleneck, that is, the existing technology can no longer meet society’s data requirements. Although the predictions of the parties are different, many people believe that this is likely to happen in the next five years. Researchers are solving this problem in many ways, including optical communication technology that uses light to transmit information. Examples of optical communications are wide ranging from ancient lighthouses to modern fiber optic cables used to watch TV and browse the Internet.
Lasers are the core components of today’s optical communication systems. Researchers have manipulated the laser in various ways. The most common way is to combine different signals into a single line to carry more information. But these technologies, especially wavelength division multiplexing and time division multiplexing, have also reached their limits.
The research team led by the University of Buffalo used another optical manipulation technique called orbital angular momentum to advance laser technology, which placed a green laser pointer in a spiral pattern with eddy currents in the center. Usually such lasers are still too large for use in current computers, but the team successfully reduced the vortex laser to a level comparable to computer chips. Because the laser beam propagates along a spiral pattern, the information is encoded into different vortex curves, so it can carry ten times more information than the traditional laser that propagates in a straight line. Vortex lasers are just one of many components needed. To build more powerful computers and data centers, advanced transmitters and receivers are ultimately required to continue.