by kfc, Technology Review
Electrons are pretty good at processing information but not so good at carrying it over long distances. Photons, on the other hand, do a grand job of shuttling data round the planet but are not so handy when it comes to processing it. As a result, transistors are electronic and communication cables are optical. And the world is burdened with a significant amount of power hungry infrastructure for converting electronic information into the optical variety and vice versa. So it’s no surprise that there is significant interest in developing an optical transistor that could make the electronic variety obsolete.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27808/?p1=blogs
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