Here's How Infrared Lasers Could Lead to Super-fast Computers.

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Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million Times Faster.
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An artist's rendering shows polarized light interacting with the honeycomb lattice.
Credit: Stephen Alvey, Michigan Engineering

▼ A billion operations per second isn't cool. Know what's cool? A million billion operations per second.
That's the promise of a new computing technique that uses laser-light pulses to make a prototype of the fundamental unit of computing, called a bit, that could switch between its on and off, or "1" and "0" states, 1 quadrillion times per second. That's about 1 million times faster than the bits in modern computers.
Conventional computers (everything from your calculatorto the smartphone or laptop you're using to read this) think in terms of 1s and 0s. Everything they do, from solving math problems, to representing the world of a video game, amounts to a very elaborate collection of 1-or-0, yes-or-no operations. And a typical computer in 2018 can use silicon bits to perform more or less 1 billion of those operations per second.
In this experiment, the researchers pulsed infrared laser light on honeycomb-shaped lattices of tungstenand selenium, allowing the silicon chip to switch from "1" to "0" states just like a normal computer processor — only a million times faster, according to the study, which was published in Natureon May 2.
That's a trick of how electrons behave in that honeycomb lattice.
In most molecules, the electrons in orbit  around themcan jump into several different quantum states, or or "psuedospins," when they get excited. A good way to imagine these states is as different, looping racetracks around the molecule itself. (Researchers call these tracks "valleys," and the manipulation of these spins "valleytronics.")
When unexcited, the electron might stay close to the molecule, turning in lazy circles. But excite that electron, perhaps with a flash of light, and it will need to go burn off some energy on one of the outer tracks.
The tungsten-selenium lattice has just two tracks around it for excited electrons to enter.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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