Caltech’s New Optical Switch Could Lead to Ultrafast Signal Processing (scitechdaily.com)

"By using pulses of light rather than electrical signals, optical devices have the capacity to transmit signals far faster than electrical devices. That is why modern devices often employ optics to send data. For example, fiber optic cables provide much faster internet speeds than conventional Ethernet cables.

By doing more, at faster speeds, and with less power the field of optics has the potential to revolutionize computing. However, one of the major limitations of optics-based systems today is that, at a certain point, they still need to have electronics-based transistors to efficiently process the data.

Now, using the power of optical nonlinearity (more on that later), a team of engineers led by Alireza Marandi, assistant professor of electrical engineering and applied physics at Caltech, has created an all-optical switch. Such a switch could eventually enable data processing using photons. The research was published on July 28 in the journal Nature Photonics."