Imagine if the computations in chips (or CPUs, Computer Processing Units) could be performed at the speed of light instead of electrons. Photonic chips are such devices that use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their computational tasks. Researchers at MIT have made a breakthrough that allows them to make those optical chips using standard microchip manufacturing machinery, with the design of the circuit produced “just like an integrated-circuit person can design a whole microprocessor. Now, you can do an integrated optical circuit.”
Photonic chips “may be the next generation in terms of speed” for communications systems, says Caroline Ross, the Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT who lead the development.
