Optical Transistor: Computing at the Speed of Light

Other Books by The Author

1 - Plasma Propulsion

2 - Pulse Detonation Engine

3 - Agricultural Robotics

4 - Closed Ecological Systems

5 - Cultured Meat

6 - Vertical Farming

7 - Autonomous Vehicles

8 - Autonomous Drones

9 - Autonomous Robotics

10 - Autonomous Weapons

11 - Arcology

12 - 4D Printing

13 - Domed City

14 - Distributed Ledger

15 - Digital Currency

16 - Decentralized Finance

17 - Smart Machines

18 - Aerogel

19 - Amorphous Metal

20 - Bioplastic

21 - Conductive Polymer

22 - Cryogenic Treatment

23 - Dynamic Armour

24 - Fullerene

25 - Graphene

26 - Lab on a Chip

27 - High Temperature Superconductivity

28 - Magnetic Nanoparticles

29 - Magnetorheological Fluid

30 - Microfluidics

31 - Superfluidity

32 - Metamaterial

33 - Metal Foam

34 - Multi Function Structure

35 - Nanomaterials

36 - Programmable Matter

37 - Quantum Dot

38 - Silicene

39 - Superalloy

40 - Synthetic Diamond

41 - Time Crystal

42 - Translucent Concrete

43 - Brain Computer Interface

44 - Volumetric Display

45 - Laser TV

46 - Holography

47 - Optical Transistor

48 - Screenless Video

49 - Swarm Intelligence

Series by The Author

Emerging Technologies in Aerospace

1 - Plasma Propulsion

2 - Pulse Detonation Engine

Emerging Technologies in Agriculture

1 - Agricultural Robotics

2 - Closed Ecological Systems

3 - Cultured Meat

4 - Vertical Farming

Emerging Technologies in Autonomous Things

1 - Autonomous Vehicles

2 - Autonomous Drones

3 - Autonomous Robotics

4 - Autonomous Weapons

Emerging Technologies in Construction

1 - Arcology

2 - 4D Printing

3 - Domed City

Emerging Technologies in Finance

1 - Distributed Ledger

2 - Digital Currency

3 - Decentralized Finance

Emerging Technologies in Information Technology

1 - Smart Machines

Emerging Technologies in Materials Science

1 - Aerogel

2 - Amorphous Metal

3 - Bioplastic

4 - Conductive Polymer

5 - Cryogenic Treatment

6 - Dynamic Armour

7 - Fullerene

8 - Graphene

9 - Lab on a Chip

10 - High Temperature Superconductivity

11 - Magnetic Nanoparticles

12 - Magnetorheological Fluid

13 - Microfluidics

14 - Superfluidity

15 - Metamaterial

16 - Metal Foam

17 - Multi Function Structure

18 - Nanomaterials

19 - Programmable Matter

20 - Quantum Dot

21 - Silicene

22 - Superalloy

23 - Synthetic Diamond

24 - Time Crystal

25 - Translucent Concrete

Emerging Technologies in Neuroscience

1 - Brain Computer Interface

Emerging Technologies in Optoelectronics

1 - Volumetric Display

2 - Laser TV

3 - Holography

4 - Optical Transistor

5 - Screenless Video

Emerging Technologies in Robotics

1 - Swarm Intelligence

One Billion Knowledgeable

Optical Transistor

Computing at the speed of light

Fouad Sabry

Copyright

Optical Transistor Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [email protected] with the subject line Optical Transistor: Computing at the speed of light, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Optical Transistor, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Optical Transistor.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Optical Transistor, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Optical Transistor, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Optical Transistor. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices. Optical transistors provide a means to control light using only light and has applications in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks. Such technology has the potential to exceed the speed of electronics, while conserving more power.

Table of Contents

Other Books by The Author

Series by The Author

Optical Transistor

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Optical transistor

Chapter 2: Band gap

Chapter 3: Photonics

Chapter 4: Timeline of quantum computing and communication

Chapter 5: Polariton

Chapter 6: Pockels effect

Chapter 7: Quantum network

Chapter 8: Optical computing

Chapter 9: Frequency comb

Chapter 10: Photonic integrated circuit

Chapter 11: Silicon photonics

Chapter 12: Yoshihisa Yamamoto (scientist)

Chapter 13: Single-photon source

Chapter 14: Exciton-polariton

Chapter 15: Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard model

Chapter 16: Linear optical quantum computing

Chapter 17: Plasmonics

Chapter 18: Integrated quantum photonics

Chapter 19: Bose–Einstein condensation of polaritons

Chapter 20: Quantum dot single-photon source

Chapter 21: Quantum memory

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Optical transistor

An optical transistor is a device that switches or amplifies optical impulses. It is also known as an optical switch or a light valve. Light passing through an optical transistor's input alters the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output, while output power is supplied by a separate optical source. Because the intensity of the input signal may be lower than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical equivalent of the electronic transistor, which serves as the foundation of modern electronic technologies. Optical transistors are used in optical computing and fiber-optic communication networks to control light using only light. Such technology has the potential to outperform electronics in terms of speed while conserving electricity.

Because photons do not interact fundamentally, an optical transistor must use an operating medium to mediate interactions. This is accomplished without the need for an intermediate step of translating optical to electrical signals. Implementations using a variety of operating mediums have been proposed and tested. Their ability to compete with modern electronics, however, is currently limited.

Contents

1 Applications

2 Comparison with electronics

3 Implementations

4 See also

5 References

Applications

Fiber-optic communication networks could benefit from the usage of optical transistors. Although fiber-optic cables are used to carry data, tasks like signal routing are performed electronically. This necessitates optical-electronic-optical conversion, which results in bottlenecks. All-optical digital signal processing and routing is theoretically possible utilizing optical transistors placed in photonic integrated circuits. The same components could be utilized to develop new types of optical amplifiers that correct for signal attenuation along transmission lines.

The construction of an optical digital computer, in which components process photons rather than electrons, is a more complex application of optical transistors. Furthermore, optical transistors that use single photons could become a fundamental aspect of quantum information processing, allowing them to selectively address individual quantum information units known as qubits.

Unlike electronic transistors, which suffer from Single-event upset, optical transistors may be immune to the intense radiation of space and extraterrestrial worlds.

Comparison with electronics

The most frequently asserted reason for optical logic is that switching times in optical transistors can be substantially faster than in conventional electronic transistors. Because the speed of light in an optical medium is often significantly faster than the drift velocity of electrons in semiconductors, this is the case.

Optical transistors can be attached directly to fiber-optic cables, whereas electronics requires coupling via photodetectors, LEDs, or lasers. The more natural integration of all-optical signal processors with fiber optics would reduce complexity and delay in signal routing and other signal processing in optical communication networks.

It is yet unclear whether optical processing can lower the energy required to switch a single transistor to less than that required by electrical transistors. To compete, transistors must use a few tens of photons every operation. However, it is evident that this is possible with the proposed single-photon transistors for quantum information processing.

The most major advantage of optical logic over electronic logic is its lower power usage. This is due to the lack of capacitance in the connections between the individual logic gates. The transmission line in electronics must be charged to the signal voltage. When the length of a transmission line is equal to that of a single gate, its capacitance exceeds the capacitance of the transistors in a logic gate. One of the most significant energy losses in electronic logic is transmission line charging. This loss is avoided with optical communication, where only enough energy is transmitted down a line to flip an optical transistor at the receiving end. This fact has played a significant role in the adoption of fiber optics for long-distance communication, but it has yet to be utilized at the microprocessor level.

Aside from the potential benefits of faster speed, lower power consumption, and high compatibility with optical communication networks, optical transistors must meet a set of criteria before they can compete with electronics. No single solution has yet met all of these criteria while outperforming the speed and power consumption of cutting-edge electronics.

The criteria include:

Fan-out - The transistor output must be in the proper shape and have enough power to power the inputs of at least two transistors. This means that the wavelengths at the input and output, as well as the beam and pulse forms, must be consistent.

Logic level restoration - The signal needs to be ‘cleaned’ by each transistor. Noise and degradations in signal quality must be removed so that they do not propagate through the system and accumulate to produce errors.

Logic level is independent of loss - In optical communication, signal strength diminishes with distance owing to light absorption in the fiber optic cable. As a result, for arbitrary length interconnects, a simple intensity threshold cannot discriminate between on and off signals. To avoid errors, the system must encode zeros and ones at multiple frequencies and use differential signaling, in which the ratio or difference in two different powers transmits the logic signal.

Implementations

Several approaches for implementing all-optical transistors have been presented. A proof of concept has been experimentally demonstrated in numerous circumstances. Some of the designs are based on:

electromagnetically induced transparency

where the transmission is regulated by a lesser flow of gate photons in an optical cavity or microresonator

by addressing highly interacting particles in free space, i.e. without a resonator Rydberg claims

a network of indirect excitons (composed of bound pairs of electrons and holes in double quantum wells with a static dipole moment). Because of their dipole orientation, indirect excitons, which are produced by light and decay to emit light, interact strongly.

a system of microcavity polaritons (exciton-polaritons inside an optical microcavity) in which polaritons, like exciton-based optical transistors, enable effective interactions between photons

photonic crystal cavities with an active Raman gain medium

For quantum information applications, a cavity switch modulates cavity properties in the time domain.

nanowire-based cavities employing polaritonic interactions for optical switching

Microrings of silicon put in the course of an optical signal Gate photons heat the silicon microring, creating a shift in the optical resonance frequency and, as a result, a change in transparency at a particular optical supply frequency.

a dual-mirror optical cavity containing approximately 20,000 cesium atoms trapped by optical tweezers and laser-cooled to a few microkelvin Because the cesium ensemble did not interact with light, it was translucent. The length of a round trip between the cavity mirrors was an integer multiple of the incident light source's wavelength, allowing the cavity to transmit the source light. Photons from the gate light field entered the cavity from the side, where they interacted with an additional control light field, changing the state of a single atom to be resonant with the cavity optical field, changing the field's resonance wavelength