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Calculating with light using a chip-scale all-optical abacus

Machines that simultaneously process and store multistate data at one and the same location can provide a new class of fast, powerful and efficient general-purpose computers. We demonstrate the central element of an all-optical calculator, a photonic abacus, which provides multistate compute-and-sto...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Feldmann, J., Stegmaier, M., Gruhler, N., Ríos, C., Bhaskaran, H., Wright, C. D., Pernice, W. H. P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5665880/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29093510
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01506-3
Descripción
Sumario:Machines that simultaneously process and store multistate data at one and the same location can provide a new class of fast, powerful and efficient general-purpose computers. We demonstrate the central element of an all-optical calculator, a photonic abacus, which provides multistate compute-and-store operation by integrating functional phase-change materials with nanophotonic chips. With picosecond optical pulses we perform the fundamental arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, including a carryover into multiple cells. This basic processing unit is embedded into a scalable phase-change photonic network and addressed optically through a two-pulse random access scheme. Our framework provides first steps towards light-based non-von Neumann arithmetic.