Second, light is much more difficult to manipulate than electricity because it doesn’t have charge. Making it flow in one direction requires new materials that overturn this law, breaking what’s known as time-reversal symmetry. First, following the laws of thermodynamics, light should move forward through an object with no moving parts in the exact same way it would move backward. The main challenges of a light-based diode are two-fold. “The increased speed and bandwidth of light would enable faster solutions to some of the hardest scientific, mathematical and economic problems.” Spinning light, breaking laws “One grand vision is to have an all-optical computer where electricity is replaced completely by light and photons drive all information processing,” Lawrence said. They’ve also created the necessary nanostructures - the custom smaller-than-microscopic components - and are installing the light source that they hope will bring their theorized system to life. “Achieving compact, efficient photonic diodes is paramount to enabling next-generation computing, communication and even energy conversion technologies.”Īt this point, Dionne and Lawrence have designed the new photon diode and checked their design with computer simulations and calculations. “Diodes are ubiquitous in modern electronics, from LEDs (light emitting diodes) to solar cells (essentially LEDs run in reverse) to integrated circuits for computing and communications,” said Jennifer Dionne, associate professor of materials science and engineering and senior author on the paper describing this work, published July 24 in Nature Communications. Mark Lawrence, a postdoctoral scholar in materials science and engineering at Stanford, has moved a step closer to this future with a scheme to make a photon diode - a device that allows light to only flow in one direction - which, unlike other light-based diodes, is small enough for consumer electronics.Īll he had to do was design smaller-than-microscopic structures and break a fundamental symmetry of physics. The future of faster, more efficient information processing may come down to light rather than electricity. The Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions.Technology Transfer/Technology Licensing.Stanford Data Science & Computation Complex.Dean’s Graduate Student Advisory Council.Summer Opportunities in Engineering Research and Leadership (Summer First).Graduate school frequently asked questions.Stanford Exposure to Research and Graduate Education (SERGE).Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF).Additional Calculus for Engineers (ACE).Stanford Summer Engineering Academy (SSEA).About the Equity and Inclusion Initiatives.
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