Yeah I work in photonics (phd student in a lab that does optical microresonators). The problem is that photonic structures are massive (10s-100s of um) and wast

Yeah I work in photonics (phd student in a lab that does optical microresonators). The problem is that photonic structures are massive (10s-100s of um) and waste a lot of space. Photonics will never beat electronics in terms of density on the chip because you're limited by the wavelength of the light you're using. They are also quite lossy. Every time the waveguide turns, you have some radiation loss, for example. You can't contain an optical signal on a chip as well as you can contain an electrical signal.