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Article: Computing trips the light fantastic. Britain has made a big investment in the marriage of photonics and electronics, which is set to change lives and drive computing into the woodwork. Clive Akass reports.
- Article from:
- Personal Computer World
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
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Products on display in a former slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Edinburgh last month indicate how computing is shaping up for the 21st century. Or, to put it another way, how computing is beginning to see the light.
Twentieth century IT grew out of electronics, the subtle use of the movement of electrons. But now that electronics is stretched to its limits, there is increasing interest in a similar use of photons, the smallest possible packets (quanta) of light.
Photonics is to photons what electronics is to electrons. Opto-electronics, or optronics, is where photonics and electronics meet, for instance, in the laser-driven, read-write head of an ...