5 ms·

Light-field control of real and virtual charge carriers

pvinis 4y ago
very cool
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
cudgy 4y ago
“Obviously, the setup is vastly larger and more complex than the simple arrangement of transistors used for conventional logic gates, and shrinking it down to the scales required to make practical chips will be a mammoth task.” Just need some yet invented nanolasers for this to work I guess, but this is still a fascinating approach.
- gala8y 4y ago
  What if they shrink this technology, yet to the size greater than modern chips and we land with equivalent of 50's main-frames, but much faster? Of course I have no idea on energies required, speed/size-distance trade-offs, etc.
simonh 4y ago
More a light detector than a logic gate really. To chain them together in a chip you’d need micron scale directional light emitters that also had signal to emission times at logic gate speed, and also consumed no more power and release no more heat than current logic gates. Otherwise you’re back to square one again because as the article points out it’s the power consumption that’s one of the major constraints and lasers consume a crapton of power. I don’t see how something like this could ever be practical. This effect might be useful in optical communications systems though, where scale and power consumption isn’t as much of a constraint.
- ekkeke 4y ago
  This was my first thought too. How are they planning on chaining these together? Sounds like a non-starter.
gswdh 4y ago
greenbit 4y ago
There's a quite significant difference between having one pulse that lasts a quadrillionth of a second, and sustaining a quadrillion pulses per second ..
buzzwordsplz 4y ago
- white_dragon88 4y ago
  wat
  - bzzbzzbzz 4y ago
    Brian, Brian, Brian. If you know, you know.
- voldacar 4y ago
  Meds, now
mgdlbp 4y ago
Recently discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356109 – 2022-05-12 (106 comments)
- tempodox 4y ago
  Clickbait rumors die hard.
stunpix 4y ago
Personally, I’m tired of these clickbait titles. I’ve read similar ones “x now is y times better/faster/efficient” countless times last two decade or so for batteries, transistors, ai, chips, cars, whatever you name it. The reality: industry for some reason doesn’t leap insanely with new technologies every two-five years after such or similar claims but it’s slowly crawling for decades…
- workingon 4y ago
  That’s how basic research works though. If you were older you’d be starting the see the results of the clickbait science from 40-50 years ago.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    There were far, far fewer clickbait headlines or articles about science in public media 40-50 years ago. We have a modern epidemic because this kind of coverage now plays an unfortunately large role in research funding. It needs to be corrected because it erodes public trust in science.
  - zaik 4y ago
    ...results of a small amount of the clickbait science from 40-50 years ago
  - amelius 4y ago
    "Transistor million times smaller than vacuum tube!" At least they were somewhat right initially, and eventually they were even too modest.
  - sennight 4y ago
    Basic research is conducted without consideration to commercial exploitation. Think research in time reversal symmetry physics... try to making a buck off that. This article is the direct opposite of basic research, at least according to the authors of the abstract page: They cite a bunch of prior research on the mechanics underlying the paper and then say "However, a link between the generation of the carrier types and their importance for observables of technological relevance is missing." Translation: "We think we found an industrial application". Actual progress is very slow, even when the technology is already out of the lab - it can easily be decades of waiting before making it into the hands of everyone who'd benefit. Like dialup modems... the tech behind that had not only been available, but already applied to the task, years before the number of people aware of it grew beyond military and telecom people. There were no hyperbolic articles preceding the release of the Hayes modem. Actually, I'm drawing a blank on any example of popsci carny barkers doing anything but misleading and misinforming.
Aardwolf 4y ago
Can lasers really be controlled that fast, 1 petahertz means one femtosecond, do lasers not have some sort of warmup time, even if just for a few photons?

very cool

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

“Obviously, the setup is vastly larger and more complex than the simple arrangement of transistors used for conventional logic gates, and shrinking it down to the scales required to make practical chips will be a mammoth task.” Just need some yet invented nanolasers for this to work I guess, but this is still a fascinating approach.

gala8y 4y ago
What if they shrink this technology, yet to the size greater than modern chips and we land with equivalent of 50's main-frames, but much faster? Of course I have no idea on energies required, speed/size-distance trade-offs, etc.

simonh 4y ago

More a light detector than a logic gate really. To chain them together in a chip you’d need micron scale directional light emitters that also had signal to emission times at logic gate speed, and also consumed no more power and release no more heat than current logic gates. Otherwise you’re back to square one again because as the article points out it’s the power consumption that’s one of the major constraints and lasers consume a crapton of power. I don’t see how something like this could ever be practical. This effect might be useful in optical communications systems though, where scale and power consumption isn’t as much of a constraint.

ekkeke 4y ago
This was my first thought too. How are they planning on chaining these together? Sounds like a non-starter.

gswdh 4y ago

greenbit 4y ago

There's a quite significant difference between having one pulse that lasts a quadrillionth of a second, and sustaining a quadrillion pulses per second ..

buzzwordsplz 4y ago

white_dragon88 4y ago
wat
- bzzbzzbzz 4y ago
  Brian, Brian, Brian. If you know, you know.
voldacar 4y ago
Meds, now

mgdlbp 4y ago

Recently discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356109 – 2022-05-12 (106 comments)

tempodox 4y ago
Clickbait rumors die hard.

stunpix 4y ago

Personally, I’m tired of these clickbait titles. I’ve read similar ones “x now is y times better/faster/efficient” countless times last two decade or so for batteries, transistors, ai, chips, cars, whatever you name it. The reality: industry for some reason doesn’t leap insanely with new technologies every two-five years after such or similar claims but it’s slowly crawling for decades…

workingon 4y ago
That’s how basic research works though. If you were older you’d be starting the see the results of the clickbait science from 40-50 years ago.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  There were far, far fewer clickbait headlines or articles about science in public media 40-50 years ago. We have a modern epidemic because this kind of coverage now plays an unfortunately large role in research funding. It needs to be corrected because it erodes public trust in science.
- zaik 4y ago
  ...results of a small amount of the clickbait science from 40-50 years ago
- amelius 4y ago
  "Transistor million times smaller than vacuum tube!" At least they were somewhat right initially, and eventually they were even too modest.
- sennight 4y ago
  Basic research is conducted without consideration to commercial exploitation. Think research in time reversal symmetry physics... try to making a buck off that. This article is the direct opposite of basic research, at least according to the authors of the abstract page: They cite a bunch of prior research on the mechanics underlying the paper and then say "However, a link between the generation of the carrier types and their importance for observables of technological relevance is missing." Translation: "We think we found an industrial application". Actual progress is very slow, even when the technology is already out of the lab - it can easily be decades of waiting before making it into the hands of everyone who'd benefit. Like dialup modems... the tech behind that had not only been available, but already applied to the task, years before the number of people aware of it grew beyond military and telecom people. There were no hyperbolic articles preceding the release of the Hayes modem. Actually, I'm drawing a blank on any example of popsci carny barkers doing anything but misleading and misinforming.

Aardwolf 4y ago

Can lasers really be controlled that fast, 1 petahertz means one femtosecond, do lasers not have some sort of warmup time, even if just for a few photons?