Photonic neuron may compute a billion times faster than brain circuits
The project uses fiber-optic devices that are fast calculations with photons of light instead of electrons used by power circuits based computers. (Photo: Frank Wojciechowski)
(PhysOrg.com) - The name of the project - "Photonic neuron" - was catchy, but what really caught the attention Nahmias Mitchell "was the opportunity to combine his interests in engineering and neuroscience.
Nahmias has become one of the undergraduates at Princeton in September to participate in a research collaboration between the University and Lockheed Martin, Aerospace and Defense Technology Corporation to produce fiber-based optical computing devices that function similarly to neurons, but a billion times faster.
"I am an electrical engineering major, but I really like biology and cognitive science," said Nahmias, a member of the class of 2012. "This is a cool project, a really interesting confluence of a lot of areas."
If the project is successful, the new technology could allow computer circuits that are able to do calculations in the almost instantaneous life or death situations, such as the location of a terrorist from a radio or to decide the ejection of a fighter pilot of a jet. It could also allow fast processing of large amounts of data such as video signals that are currently guiding the movement of robotic vehicles or scans of genetic data for clues to fight against the disease.
The research is led by Paul Prucnal, Princeton professor of electrical engineering, and David Rosenbluth, an engineer and neuroscientist at the Laboratory of principle Lockheed Martin advanced technology, Cherry Hill, NJ It is funded by Lockheed Martin and Stuart M. Essig, Princeton '83 and Erin S. Enright '82 Fund for Innovation in engineering and neuroscience.
The project, which began in 2008, aims to overcome the constraints inherent speed electrical circuits, which are ultimately limited by the time it takes electricity to flow through the son.Son rather than electric, the team uses light fiber optic cables through which information travels at the speed of light. The "photonic" half the project's name comes from photons, which are the fundamental unit of light, as the electrons are the fundamental unit of electricity. In conventional fiber optic communications, information speed of photons along great distances, but are converted to electrons once they reach a destination and information should be addressed. In the laboratory Prucnal, processing occurs when information is still encoded in the light.
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The project uses fiber-optic devices that make ultrafast calculations with photons of light instead of the electrons used by electricity-based computers circuits. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski) () -- The name of the project -- "photonic

In QKD, entangled photons are used to share a key between the two ends of a communication. If the implementation of the QKD system is secure, then any third party trying to intercept the photons carrying the key will be detectable at the receiver,
The researchers said altering the composition of the metamaterial can results in single-, dual-band and broadband metamaterials, which could allow greater control of emitted photons in order to improve energy conversion efficiency.
Unlike spin angular momentum which is associated with the polarization of light, the orbital angular momentum arises as a consequence of the spatial distribution of the intensity and phase of an optical field, even down to the single photon limit.
The breakthrough solar cell technology uses a 3-D design to capture sunlight within the micro-photovoltaic structures where photons leap around till they are changed into electrons. The company's innovative solar cell design is expected to
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