ABSTRACT

Photonic Computing is digital computing in imitation of conventional electronic computing only

using laser light instead of electricity, and holograms instead of silicon computer chips. "Photonic"
comes from "photon" which is the smallest unit of light just as an electron is the smallest unit of
electricity. "Photon" comes from "photo" as in "Kodak moment!" Uninhibited light travels
thousands of times faster than electrons in computer chips; therefore it is capable of computing
thousands of times faster than electronic computing.

The photonic transistor products, which are expected to replace much of the electronics
infrastructure during the 21st century, can be made smaller, faster, and cheaper. They are more
reliable, generate less heat, and are not susceptible to interference from outside influences.

Photonic computers use the transfer and manipulation of photons, which are pulses
of light, as a means of transferring and performing calculations of data. For performing calculations,
Photonic computers manipulate the flow of electrons through logic gates composed of transistors,
which acts like switches – located in the computer's Central Processing Unit. Photonic computers,
like modern computers, works in a similar fashion in the sense that they both transfer and
manipulate data in the form of bits, however, unlike traditional computers where bits are
represented as electrons, Photonic computers represent bits in the form of photons. The Photonic
computer uses only light to collect, retrieve, and process data. This makes it operate much faster
than electronically based computers because information and processing occurs at the speed of
light. Another key benefit of the Photonic computer is that less energy is used to power the system
and it does not have the same interference problems that make it difficult for current chip
manufacturers to make smaller transistors. This is because light energy does not interact with other
photons. The processor itself is a laser inscribed piece of crystal made in the laboratory and the
current system uses only a huge amount of RAM to store information. Although this system is
complete, it is still very simple and not very useful.
 INTRODUCTION

Photonic computing is digital computing in replication of conventional electronic computing only

using laser light instead of electricity and holograms instead of silicon computer chips. Photonic
comes from photon which is the smallest unit of light just as an electron is the smallest unit of
electricity. Photon comes from photo. Uninhibited light travels thousands of times faster than
electrons in computer chips therefore, it is capable of computing thousands of times faster than
electronic computing. Therefore, light computers compute thousands of times faster than any
electronic computer can ever due to the physical limitation differences between light and electricity
With today's growing dependence on computing technology, the need for high performance
computers (HPC) has significantly increased. With the help of virtual product design and
development, costs can be reduced. Hence looking for improved computing capabilities is desirable.
Optical computing includes the optical calculation of transforms and optical pattern matching.
Emerging technologies also make the optical storage of data a reality.
The speed of computers was achieved by miniaturizing electronic components to a very small
micron-size scale, but they are limited not only by the speed of electrons in matter (signals cannot
propagate faster than the speed of light) but also by the increasing density of interconnections
necessary to link the electronic gates on microchips. The optical computer comes as a solution of
miniaturization problem. In an optical computer, electrons are replaced by photons, the subatomic
bits of electromagnetic radiation that make up light.
Electronic computing uses electrons to perform the logic that makes
computing work. Photonic computing uses photons of laser light to do the same job. Electronic
transistors are whittled into silicon wafers to make modern computer chips. Today's technology,
however, is pushing the electron to its physical limits. As a result, the manufacturing processes are
becoming increasingly expensive for producing even minor improvements. However, photons are
manipulated using inexpensive computer-generated holograms made of plastic or glass.
Photonic computers, therefore, will be far more valuable than their slower electronic counterparts,
and far less expensive to manufacture. Interestingly, most telephone companies have been investing
heavily in the global conversion from copper wire to optical fiber because light does a better job of
carrying information than does electricity. This is because photons (the basic unit of light) go faster,
and have a higher bandwidth than do electrons. Thus, photons are inherently more valuable than
electrons. If we can just get them to accomplish the logic tasks that make computing work, they will
become the next logical computing upgrade.

In the photonic computer of the future, electronic circuits and wires will be replaced by a few
optical fibers and films, making the systems more efficient with no interference, more cost
effective, lighter and more compact. Optical components would not need to have insulators as those
needed between electronic components because they do not experience cross talk. Indeed, multiple
frequencies (or different colors) of light can travel through optical components without interfacing
with each others, allowing photonic devices to process multiple streams of data simultaneously.
 Concept:

Photonics: a related term:

Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling and detecting photons,
particularly in the visible and near infra-red spectrum. Photonics as a science is closely related to
quantum optics and optoelectronics with somewhat unclear boundaries. Quantum optics frequently
implies fundamental research, while photonics often refers to more application-related research.
The term optoelectronics, which by construction is a somewhat narrower field than photonics
dealing only with active elements involving an electrical interaction, nonetheless frequently is used
to include passive photonic elements as well. In addition, the overlap between all of these fields and
"optics" is unclear, and different definitions are used in different parts of the world and in different
industries.

The term photonics may, but doesn't always, imply a goal of establishing an electronics of photons
instead of electrons.

Figure 1.1 – Refraction of photons by a prism

The science of photonics includes the emission, transmission, amplification, detection, modulation,
and switching of light. Photonic devices include optoelectronic devices such as lasers and
photodetectors, as well as optical fiber, photonic crystals, planar waveguides and other passive
optical elements.
Applications of photonics include:
• light detection
• telecommunications
• information processing
• illumination
• metrology
• spectroscopy
• holography
• medicine (surgery, vision correction, endoscopy, health monitoring)
• laser material processing
• visual art
• biophotonics
• agriculture
• robotics
• defense.

History of photonics:
Photonics as a field really began in 1960, with the invention of the laser, followed in the 1970s by
the development of optical fibers as a medium for transmitting information using light beams, and
the Erbium-doped fiber amplifier. These inventions formed the basis for the telecommunications
revolution of the late 20th Century, and provided the infrastructure for the Internet.

Photonics as a field was largely focused on communications. However, photonics covers a huge
range of science and technology applications, including: laser manufacturing, biological and
chemical sensing, medical diagnostics and therapy, display technology, and optical computing.
Various non-telecom photonics applications exhibit a strong growth particularly since the dot-com
crash, partly because many companies have been looking for new application areas quite
successfully. A huge further growth of photonics can be expected for the case that the current
development of silicon photonics will be successful.
Photonic Transistor:

A transistor is a switch that is turned on and off by signals from other switches. They perform logic,
store information and are the workhorses of digital computing. Photonic transistors use light to
perform the switching functions that are performed by electronic transistors in conventional
computers. As you might expect, photonic transistors are not whittled out of silicon. Instead they
are made out of photographs ie, inexpensive photographs.

Until the invention of the photonic transistor, it was generally thought to be impossible to switch
one beam of light on and off with another beam of light, which is necessary in order to manipulate
information and perform computing functions completely in the light-speed optical domain.
However, the photonic transistors now being developed by a local San Diego firm are currently
switching light in 1.5 femtoseconds (fs). (One millionth of a billionth of a second.). The photonic
transistor truly is the first method developed that switches light with light at the full speed of light

To be precise, photonic transistors have been produced that react to photonic signals in the time of
one cycle of one wavelength of the light being used. For red light that switching time is about 2.1
fs. Blue is about 1.5 fs, with the 1500 nm light used in fiberoptic communications switching in 5 fs.

Visible light is a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, like radio waves only having carrier
frequencies in the terahertz (trillion cycles per second) range rather than the megahertz range. The
photonic transistor has been shown to have a tuning and filtering resolution finer than that of an AM
radio.
 Each photon provides an independent information-carrying variable for each
independent photonic frequency or color. So the capacity of light to carry information in serial
surpasses electronics because of light's physical structure, but a multi-colored beam of light is like a
parallel bunch of wires where each "wire" is a different color. Each color can, in theory, carry over
200 terabits of information per second. The entire Library of Congress has only about 30 terabits of
information in it. Multiply that times the number of colors and it represents a gigantic amount of
information carrying capacity. Since the photonic transistor is able to manipulate those bits in the
optical domain just as nimbly as electronic transistors manipulate the information in electronic
circuits, nearly every information processing device can now be produced using light speed
photonics.

Photonic Switching
Many electronic-imitating Boolean logic devices, which are the basic transistor circuits used
to build digital computers, have two inputs that at various times are either on or off. This produces 4
different possible configurations:

• Both light beams on.

• The 1st one on and the 2nd one off.

• The 2nd on and 1st off, and

• Both beams off.

In one of the simplest arrangements, the two inputs are two slots side by side. By switching the light
on and off that goes through each slit independently we have produced a two-input photonic device
that produces a dynamic image from which we are able to extract energy to form our outputs. .
Figure:A simplified photonic transistor showing an amplifier/boolean OR circuit, and an XOR circuit.
When two laser beams are combined (a & b), they form an interference fringe onto a fringe
component separating mask. If one beam is shut off (c) the fringe goes away, and light goes through
the hole in the mask to produce an "on" output of intensity 1. If both beams are shut off, (d), the
output is off. If the hole in the mask is placed at the position of constructive interference (CI), the
output through the hole is four times the intensity of a single beam. The device will amplify a
modulated input signal if the other beam is kept on all the time, or it will function as a boolean OR
circuit if both beams are modulated. If the hole is placed at a position where destructive interference
(DI) occurs (b), then a boolean XOR circuit is produced.

The XOR:

An output hole placed at the location of the minima provides an output when either of the
input beams is on by itself. However, because 'light makes darkness,' a minima occurs over the
output hole. No energy arrives at that location, so nothing goes through the hole. Thus, the output
when both inputs are on is off. In Boolean computer switching logic terms, the device is an XOR.

There is a 180-degree phase shift that occurs between the two single beam states. This
introduces a phase modulation component that must be compensated for in succeeding components.
It is important to note though, that in spite of the phase shift, the needed logic information has been
extracted by a combination of its inputs. How we use that information depends on what is needed in
succeeding logic stages. However, without interference, and without energy separation from the
components of the Dynamic Image, no XOR information is extracted! Such steps are vital for the
creation of photonic computing.

The NOT:

As with any XOR, if one of the beams is kept on all the time, the device becomes a NOT.
That is, when the 2nd input is on, the output is off and vice versa. With the NOT, there is no adverse
phase modulated component, because the reverse phase state is not used. Since that one beam is
kept on as a power supply to the device, and the other beam causes its energy to either exit the hole
or not exit the hole, that 2nd input beam is actually turning the power beam on and off.

The OR:

What happens if the hole is moved over to the maxima, the CI position? Now energy
appears in the output whenever any of the beams are on. While there is a variation in output
amplitude that must be compensated for, this Boolean device is an OR.
 Approaches for Providing Solution

The efficiency to be gained from using computers is increasingly limited by the physical limitations
of the current computing paradigm. Take, for example e-mail. Today a message is first converted
fromelectronic to photonic form and then transmitted over fiber-optic cables. The light signal at the
other end must then be converted back into electronic form for processing by the receiving
computer. These conversions are inefficient and limit the instantaneous nature of computing.
Consider another example: the desktop computers that most of us use each day. Current processors
are reaching speeds of 1.2GHz. Are we going to need anything faster than these processors? Yes -
the rapid growth of the Internet, expanding at almost 15% per month, demands faster speeds and
largerbandwidths than electronic circuits can provide. However, electronic circuits limit network
speeds toabout 50 Gigabits per second (1 Gigabit (Gb) is 109, or 1 billion bits).

A new solution is needed. Electronic computing uses electrons to perform the

logic that makes computing work. Photonic computing uses photons of laser light to do the same
job, only thousands of times faster. Electronic transistors are whittled into silicon wafers to make
modern computer chips. Today's technology, however, is pushing the electron to its physical limits.
As a result, the manufacturing processes are becoming increasingly expensive for producing even
minor improvements. However, photons are manipulated using inexpensive computer-generated
holograms made of plastic or glass. Photonic computers, therefore, will be far more valuable than
their slower electronic counterparts, and far less expensive to manufacture. Interestingly, most
telephone companies have been investing heavily in the global conversion from copper wire to
optical fiber because light does a better job of carrying information than does electricity. This is
because photons (the basic unit of light) go faster, and have a higher bandwidth than do electrons.
Thus, photons are inherently more valuable than electrons. If we can just get them to accomplish the
logic tasks that make computing work, they will become the next logical computing upgrade.
 ANALYSIS AND ALGORITHMS

The fundamental building block of modern electronic computers is the transistor. To replace
electronic components with optical ones, an equivalent "optical transistor" is required. This is
achieved using materials with a non-linear refractive index. In particular, materials exist where the
intensity of incoming light affects the intensity of the light transmitted through the material in a
similar manner to the voltage response of an electronic transistor. This "optical transistor" effect is
used to create logic gates which in turn are assembled into the higher level components of the
computer's cpu. Several implementation methods of quantum computation algorithm by
conventional computer have been explored for large-scale emulation. Due to the lack of quantum
effects, these methods generally require exponential growth of the size of the hardware with
increase of the number of qubits. In this paper, the spatial coding, which is an effective digital
optical computing technique, is studied as an efficient implementation method of quantum
computation algorithms. In the proposed scheme, quantum information is represented by the
intensity and the phase of elemental cells. We confirmed correct operation of the quantum
teleportation algorithm by computer simulation.

Currently, computers process information in binary units by

identifying an electric charge, or the absence thereof, as being a “one” or a “zero.” This allows the
computer to calculate at a rate of 2x bpt (bits per unit time), with ‘x’ being the current limit across
the system bus. However, the use of Photonic computing could easily increase the rate of computing
power to 16x bpt. For example, the current limit for most desktop computers is 32 bpt, so the total
output is 232 bpt, or 4,294,967,296 bpt. While that may seems rather fast, the same computer
utilizing Photonic Computing Technology would output information at a rate of 1632 or
340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 bpt. This is
79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 times more powerful than most desktop computers. To
accomplish this, an IO device in a Photonic system must first be given a specific light wave
frequency range in order to communicate with the CPU (similar to how the Interrupt Request
settings work in most PCs). This frequency will allow the computer to know which IO device the
incoming information is from. This frequency is further divided into 16 subsequent ranges, each
representing a different hexadecimal digit. This allows the device to communicate directly in
hexadecimal digits, without needing to translate to binary.
The device will then send the information to the CPU in the form of photons. For example, if the
device were a keyboard sending the following hexadecimal value “78AE6C,” a total of 6 photons
would be sent to the CPU, each at a different light frequency, but each one being within the limits of
that device. This information will then travel at the speed of light through the connecting medium
(typically optic fiber) until it reaches the processing chip. The processor will then identify the
incoming IO source by the photon’s frequency range, and will then interpret the value of the photon
by the same method. The processor can than carry on processing the information in hexadecimal
digits rather than binary. The diagram below summarizes this process.

Photonic Computing not only increases the speed of data transmission, but also dramatically
increases the quantity of information being transmitted. The limits of computational power have yet
again stretched far beyond anything previously imagined.
Photonic Logic:

Photonic computing is based on a new way of analyzing the optical problems; indeed, the concepts
of communications and information theory constitute the basis of optical information processing.

The basic element of a computer is the logic gate which performs the basic logical operations. And
the first step to understand its working is to give it an input, information is carried on beams of light
just as it is carried on a radio, television, or microwave signal. Here pulse coding is used both for
carrying data and for opening and closing logical gates that direct photonic information around
photonic circuits.

The organization of photonic logic stages imitates the organization of logic stages in an electronic
computer because we want the photonic computer to do the same things that regular computers
do...only faster. The basic switching functions of digital computers use Boolean logic. Invented by
George Boole in the middle of the 19th century, Boolean logic functions are easily generated by
machines. From a hand full of logic operators, entire computing systems are built by
interconnecting millions of them in information-flow and control architectures. The result can be an
IBM PC, a Pentium Pro or a hand calculator, but they all work the same.
Figure 2.1– State1. Pulse at input

In this figure the small square at the top input is the data pulse, the two black rectangles are the
holograms that are used to create the logic here it is OR and XOR.

Figure 2.2 – State2. Pulse reaches the gate.

XOR output pulse. OR output pulse.

Figure 2.3 – State3. Pulse reaches the gate.

HOLOGRAMS
Holograms are just one method for making photonic transistors. They can be made with optical
fibers, and a host of other optical methods. However, computer generated holograms have the
ability to imitate nearly any ordinary optical setup. The complexities of optical integrated circuits
can be calculated into a set of holograms that enable the light to manipulate the light in complex
photonic circuits. The architecture is similar to that used in electronic computer chips. It's just faster
and less expensive to manufacture.

Holography is a process by which three-dimensional images can be stored and reproduced using
laser light. The medium that stores the image--called a hologram--is nothing more than an exposed,
developed, fine-grained piece of photographic film. However, unlike a photograph which records an
image as seen from one particular viewpoint, a hologram is a record of an image as seen from many
viewpoints. In fact, "holography" comes from the Greek word "holos" meaning "whole" and
"graphos" meaning "message." A hologram does indeed record the "whole message" of an object.

Some Key Photonic Components for Computing:

The major breakthroughs on optical computing have been centered on the development of micro-
optic devices for data input. Conventional lasers are known as ‘edge emitters’ because their laser
light comes out from the edges. Also, their laser cavities run horizontally along their length. A
vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL – pronounced ‘vixel’), however, gives out laser light
from its surface and has a laser cavity that is vertical; hence the name. VCSEL is a semiconductor
vertical cavity surface emitting microlaser diode that emits light in a cylindrical beam vertically
from the surface of a fabricated wafer, and offers significant advantages when compared to the
edge-emitting lasers currently used in the majority of fiber optic communications devices. They
emit at 850 nm and have rather low thresholds (typically a few mA). They are very fast and can
give mW of coupled power into a 50 micron core fiber and are extremely radiation hard.

The principles involved in the operation of a VCSEL are very similar to those of regular lasers.
There are two special semiconductor materials sandwiching an active layer where all the action
takes place. But rather than reflective ends, in a VCSEL there are several layers of partially
reflective mirrors above and below the active layer. Layers of semiconductor with differing
compositions create these mirrors, and each mirror reflects a narrow range of wavelengths back into
the cavity in order to cause light emission at just one wavelength. Spatial light modulators (SLMs)
play an important role in several technical areas where the control of light on a pixel-by pixel basis
is a key element, such as optical processing, for inputting information on light beams, and displays.
For display purposes the desire is to have as many pixels as possible in as small and cheap a device
as possible. For such purposes designing silicon chips for use as spatial light modulators has been
effective. The basic idea is to have a set of memory cells laid out on a regular grid. These cells are
electrically connected to metal mirrors, such that the voltage on the mirror depends on the value
stored in the memory cell. A layer of optically active liquid crystal is sandwiched between this array
of mirrors and a piece of glass with a conductive coating. The voltage between individual mirrors
and the front electrode affects the optical activity of the liquid crystal in that neighbourhood. Hence
by being able to individually program the memory locations one can set up a pattern of optical
activity in the liquid crystal layer.

Broadly speaking, an optical computer is a computer in which light is used

somewhere. This can means fiber optical connections between electronic components, free space
connections, or one in which light functions as a mechanism for storage of data, logic or arithmetic.
Instead of electrons in silicon integrated circuits, the digital optical computers will be based on
photons. Smart pixels, the union of optics and electronics, both expands the capabilities of
electronic systems and enables optical systems with high levels of electronic signal processing.
Thus, smart pixel systems add value to electronics through optical input/output and interconnection,
and value is added to optical systems through electronic enhancements which include gain feedback
control, and image processing and compression. Smart pixel technology is a relatively new
approach to integrating electronic circuitry and optoelectronic devices in a common framework.
The purpose is to leverage the advantages of each individual technology and provide improved
performance for specific applications. Here, the electronic circuitry provides complex functionality
and programmability while the optoelectronic devices provide high-speed switching and
compatibility with existing optical media.

Another advantage of light results because photons are uncharged and do not interact with one
another as readily as electrons. Consequently, light beams may pass through one another in full
duplex operation, for example without distorting the information carried.
Uses of Optics in Computing:
Currently, optics is used mostly to link portions of computers, or more intrinsically in devices that
have some optical application or component. For example, much progress has been achieved, and
optical signal processors have been successfully used, for applications such as synthetic aperture
radars, optical pattern recognition, optical image processing, fingerprint enhancement, and optical
spectrum analyzers. The early work in optical signal processing and computing was basically
analog in nature. In the past two decades, however, a great deal of effort has been expended in the
development of digital optical processors. Much work remains before digital optical computers will
be widely available commercially, but the pace of research and development has increased through
the 1990s. During the last decade, there has been continuing emphasis on the following aspects of
optical computing:

 Optical tunnel devices are under continuous development varying from small caliber
endoscopes to character recognition systems with multiple type capability.

 Development of optical processors for asynchronous transfer mode.

 Development architectures for optical neural networks.

 Development of high accuracy analog optical processors, capable of processing large

amounts of data in parallel.

Since photons are uncharged and do not interact with one another as readily as electrons, light
beams may pass through one another in full-duplex operation, for example without distorting the
information carried. In the case of electronics, loops usually generate noise voltage spikes whenever
the electromagnetic fields through the loop changes. Further, high frequency or fast switching
pulses will cause interference in neighbouring wires. On the other hand, signals in adjacent optical
fibers or in optical integrated channels do not affect one another nor do they pick up noise due to
loops. Finally, optical materials possess superior storage density and accessibility over magnetic
materials. The field of optical computing is progressing rapidly and shows many dramatic
opportunities for overcoming the limitations described earlier for current electronic computers. The
process is already underway whereby optical devices have been incorporated into many computing
systems. Laser diodes as sources of coherent light have dropped rapidly in price due to mass
production.
Also, optical CD-ROM discs are now very common in home and office computers. Current trends
in photonic computing emphasize communications, for example the use of free-space optical
interconnects as a potential solution to alleviate bottlenecks experienced in electronic architectures,
including loss of communication efficiency in multiprocessors and difficulty of scaling down the IC
technology to sub-micron levels. Light beams can travel very close to each other, and even
intersect, without observable or measurable generation of unwanted signals. Therefore, dense arrays
of interconnects can be built using optical systems. In addition, risk of noise is further reduced, as
light is immune to electromagnetic interferences. Finally, as light travels fast and it has extremely
large spatial bandwidth and physical channel density, it appears to be an excellent media for
information transport and hence can be harnessed for data processing. This high bandwidth
capability offers a great deal of architectural advantage and flexibility. Based on the technology now
available, future systems could have 1024 smart pixels per chip with each channel clocked at
200MHz (a chip I/O of 200Gbits per second), giving aggregate data capacity in the parallel optical
highway of more that 200Tbits per second; this could be further increased to

1000Tbits. Free-space optical techniques are also used in scalable crossbar systems, which allow
arbitrary interconnections between a set of inputs and a set of outputs. Optical sorting and optical
crossbar inter-connects are used in asynchronous transfer modes or packet routing and in shared
memory multiprocessor systems.

In optical computing two types of memory are discussed. One consists of arrays of one-bit-store
elements and the other is mass storage, which is implemented by optical disks or by holographic
storage systems. This type of memory promises very high capacity and storage density. The primary
benefits offered by holographic optical data storage over current storage technologies include
significantly higher storage capacities and faster read-out rates. This research is expected to lead to
compact, high-capacity, rapid- and random-access, radiation-resistant, low-power, and low-cost data
storage devices necessary for future intelligent spacecraft, as well as to massive-capacity and fast-
access terrestrial data archives. As multimedia applications and services become more and more
prevalent, entertainment and data storage companies are looking at ways to increase the amount of
stored data and reduce the time it takes to get that data out of storage. The SLMs and the linear
array beam steerer are used in optical data storage applications. These devices are used to write data
into the optical storage medium at high speed. The analog nature of these devices means that data
can be stored at much higher density than data written by conventional devices.

ADVANTAGES

Low prices
The silicon photonics is an attempt to make the silicon based integrated chip (IC) smaller
and yet remain efficient. And the goal of the research is not only achieving high performance in
silicon photonics, but doing so at a price point that makes the technology a natural fit – even an
automatic feature – for all devices that consume bandwidth. Thus resulting in cheaper ICs and this
is due to the fact that only a small amount of silicon is needed for a photonic computer. And if the
level of connections between the components inside the chip is greater then computer generated
hologram would bring the solution to this problem.
Low size

The size of the photonic ICs is very less. By integrating multiple optical functions on a single,
easily manufactured, micron-scale photonic crystal chip the size of the devices which use this
principle gets more reduced thus making it work for network devices(Optical network), servers
which have so many processors.
More Multi processing.
As the Photonic ICs are ideal for multi core architecture to produce processors with more options
fro running more processes, threads in the different processors in the same processor chip, it leads
to more level of multiprocessing than is present in our latest processors. As the integration becomes
easier and denser in size it increases the efficiency of the computers by providing more cache
memory. These kind of systems are ideal for image processing, systems for complex mathematical
calculations.

Less heating
Over heating is the problem that is faced when the processor works more than normal operation
speed that is when it is over clocked, but I photonic ICs this is not a problem as they use very less
amount of energy and photons which are running inside the ICs for communications are generated
by low power laser.

Parallel computing
It supports parallel computing as the photonic transistors provides pipelined pulses, if the transit
time through an electronic transistor is one nanosecond, the input must remain either completely on
or completely off for that full nanosecond. Otherwise considerable noise will be introduced into the
system. The Photonic transistor, however, is able to operate using pipelined pulses. That is, a
continuous stream of very short pulses can be introduced into a single transistor, pulses that are
much shorter than the transit time of the device, and they will all be processed independently
without any noise buildup.
Interconnections made easier
Visible-light and IR beams, unlike electric currents, pass through each other without interacting.
Several (or many) laser beams can be shone so their paths intersect, but there is no interference
among the beams, even when they are confined essentially to two dimensions.

Connections in electric and optical circuits.

Electric currents must be guided around each other, and this makes three-dimensional wiring are
necessary. Thus, an optical computer, besides being much faster than an electronic one, might also
be smaller.

Conclusion

The Photonic Computer uses only light to collect, retrieve and process data. This makes it operate
much faster than electronically based computers, because information and processing occurs at the
speed of light. Another key benefit of the photonic computer is that less energy is used to power the
system and it does not have the same interference problems that make it difficult for current chip
manufacturers to make smaller transistors. This is because light energy does not interact with other
photons. The processor itself is a laser inscribed piece of crystal made in the laboratory, and the
current system uses only a huge amount of RAM to store information. Although this system is
complete, it is still very simple and not very useful. The Photonic Computer is also different from a
traditional computer in many other ways. First, the hardwired operating system is laser etched into
the crystal. This means that the computer itself is not susceptable to computer viruses that effect
operating systems. Second, the only way to upgrade the operating system is to get a new processing
crystal.

In the near term, at least, Photonic computers will most likely be hybrid optical/electronic systems
that use electronic circuits to preprocess input data for computation and to post-process output data
for error correction before outputting the results. Optical connections within electronic computer
systems will speed data between the parts of a computer and optical switches will mix in with
electronic processors to move information quickly without generating the heat that comes off
copper wires. Optical data storage devices will also be important in the development of optical
computers. Technologies currently underinvestigation include advanced optical CD-ROMs as well
as Write/Read/Erase optical memory technologies. Researchers have already designed and built all-
optical logic gate circuits for dataprocessing at Gigabit and Terabit rates.

Future Scope

Beyond the photonic/electronic computers are quantum computers, which use the properties of
quantum mechanics to process data at incredibly high speeds. In a quantum computer, information
is stored not as a string of ones and zeroes, but as a series of quantum-mechanical states: spin
directions of electrons, for instance, or polarization orientations of a photon. Quantum physical law
allows particles to be in more than one state at a time, making it possible for each particle in a
quantum computer to hold more than one bit of information. (In this field, the term "bit" is replaced
by "qubit," meaning quantum bit.) A computer containing, say, a hundred particles could execute a
computation on 2100 numbers in parallel. Algorithms have been created that use this parallelism
and allow a quantum computer to make lightningfast searches through a database. A quantum
computer is, thus far, only a hypothetical machine. They are expected to become reality between
2030 and 2050.

Nanophotonics, as it implies a unified scientific and technological field of

nanotechnology and photonics, is an emerging field of study built upon modern science and
advanced technologies. The term, nanophotonics, has been rather used with a variety of definitions
preferably found within a wide range of technical fields. The term will likely to find itself in variety
of fields ranging from bioscience to advanced solid-state devices. When nanophotonics is viewed in
a framework of establishing communications based on photons, either in fiber-optic
communications or inter / intra chip optical interconnects in computing systems, it is apparently
light (or photons) that carries information through communication systems.

SILICON NANOPHOTONIC DEVICES

Silicon is the material that has been driving microelectronics in the past several decades.
Complementary metal semiconductor oxide (CMOS) technology based on silicon has always been
on the main stream of discussion and development in microelectronics. Given a large amount of
capital invested on CMOS technologies that include chip design / architecture, chip fabrication
process packaging, and chip testing, it is certainly natural to seek practical solutions to numerous
road-blocks on the way towards further advancement within a framework of silicon CMOS
technologies. Silicon nanophonics would offer a route to add various photonic functions that are
compatible with mature CMOS platforms. In the past several years, the field of silicon
nanophotonics has been gaining significant attention as challenging technical issues associated with
current metallic interconnects (intra-chip, interchip, inter-board) become apparent i.e., metallic
interconnects will eventually be a bottleneck that would impose serious limitations on computing
performance.

Furthermore, silicon nanophonics that can be integrated on silicon CMOS platforms would allow
future computing systems to have smaller size, lower power consumption, higher data rate, greater
data transmission distance, and more functions.

OPTICAL NEAR-FIELD NANOPHOTONIC DEVICES

The "diffraction limit" notoriously imposes a clear physical limit on how we handle propagating
electromagnetic waves. Neither photonic bandgap crystals nor silicon nanophotonic devices
described earlier overcome the diffraction limit associated with a specific wavelength that needs to
be used. The diffraction limit, therefore, eventually draw the upper-bound of the level at which the
overall size of a discrete device or an integrated photonic circuit can eventually be scaled down. For
ultimate integration of nanophotonic devices, the key is, of course, to find a way to guideb
electromagnetic waves (or energy) within a scale below the diffraction limit. Maier et al. discussed
an ultimate route to nanoscale optical devices that would not be constrained by the diffraction limit
by introducing the term plasmonics.
 BENEFITS OF THE SILICON PHOTONIC MICROSYSTEM
The proposed macrochip design (requires a DRAM bandwidth of 640 GBps per site, a system
bisection bandwidth of 1 B/flop (or 10 TBps), an aggregated bandwidth of 20 TBps, I/Oof 2.5 TBps
(to disks orusers), and additional scalable off-macrochip bandwidth for node-to-node fiber
interconnects. This design uses three types of interconnects: high bandwidth, low latency memory
access for the processors; massive, high-density messagepassing on the macrochip among
processors; and offmacrochip I/O for node-to-node interconnects. We have optimized all three
interconnection types not only for high bandwidth and low latency but also for power efficiency.