Clouding over

A gas of supercooled cesium atoms fills the space between the mirrors in the RLE researchers’ experiment.In most cases, these atoms do not affect how the mirrors reflect light.However, the cavity’s physics are altered to such an extent that light can no longer pass through it if a single “gate photon” is fired into their midst from a different angle, elevating just one atom’s electron to a higher energy state.

Lead authors Wenlan Chen and Kristin M. Beck, both PhD students in his group, collaborate with Vuleti on the paper;Vienna University of Technology’s Robert Bücker;and Harvard’s Haruka Tanji-Suzuki, Mikhail D. Lukin, and Michael Gullans.

The main benefit of optical computing for conventional computers would be power management:As more and more transistors are crammed onto computer chips, they use more power and become hotter.Processing with light rather than power would resolve the two issues.