Science Behind Things

“Fast” and “Slow” Light Research to Replace Electronics With Optics

The Europeans are working on ways to develop a purely optical device, using just light, rather than electrical signals, to store and process information. Such a device uses a crystal to slow down light in some instances, so that it can be buffered in a small area. It will reduce lag time compared with today’s standard electromagnetic signals, and help computers run much faster, and process ultra-wide band microwave signals for radio communications.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424103646.htm

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Self Healing Computers

It’s so frustrating when NASA spends millions of dollars on a spacecraft, sends it to a distant planet that is months or years away, and then something happens to the computer and the ship is either crippled or dead. Fixing it could probably be easy if computer scientists could get their hands on it, but that hasn’t been possible. But now it may be, thanks to Ali Akoglu and his students at The University of Arizona. I’ve been to the University of Arizona, and there are some really smart people there.

Ali has developed a computer system that is a compromise between a general purpose system (slow but adaptable) and a hardwired one (super fast but extremely specialized). This is done through the use of Field Programmable Arrays.

Next on Ali’s plate is “…to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.” That will help computers to run for extremely long periods of time.

Source: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/researchers-create-selfhealing-computer-systems-spacecraft-16005.html

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Double Fast Semiconductors

Although silicon is the material of choice in today’s electronics industry, other semiconductors are better.  The problem is that they haven’t been compatible with silicon, until now.  A new method has been developed to match different materials that could lead to faster, smaller electronics.  This could also lead to less expensive lasers and other photonic devices.

The fundamental problem until now had been that atoms in silicon are spaced closer together than are those in semiconductors such as germanium, gallium arsenide, and indium phosphide, causing the lattice structures of silicon and the different substance being attached to it to not fit.

500-nanometer deep trenches are carved 250 to 400 nanometers wide in a layer of silicon dioxide and then filled with germanium.  Although the silicon dioxide in the bottom depth of the trench grows inadequately, above the trench, usable germanium grows relatively defect-free.

This new technology may find its way into transistors and photonics as early as the beginning of the next decade.  That’s just in time for silicon, which experts expect to reach its physical limitations by about 2012.