HPCwire: Computing with light?

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March 10, 2006

Computing with light?

by Anne Stuart, Freelance journalist

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Light is the solution. It's also the problem.

That's the paradox HP Labs' Quantum Information Processing Group is beginning to unravel with its research into optical quantum computing.

The group has been investigating ways to use photons, or light particles, for information processing, rather than the electrons used in digital electronic computers today. Their work holds promise for someday developing faster, more powerful and more secure computer networks.

"Quantum processing can attack problems we can't attack with conventional computers," says Tim Spiller, the HP Distinguished Scientist who is leading the research. "Even a small quantum computer has the potential to enhance communications and information processing."

Previous designs impractical

Today's computers work by manipulating bits that exist as either 0s or 1s. What makes quantum computing so powerful is that quantum bits (or qubits) have an infinite choice of values, meaning they can potentially perform multiple operations simultaneously. For example, a quantum computer could efficiently factor large numbers that today's, or even tomorrow's, conventional machines might never be able to crack.

Scientists have believed for years that high-speed light is the best candidate for moving quantum information from place to place. However, previous designs for quantum computing using light have been extremely inefficient, and so completely impractical for actual technology.

Challenges in working with light

"Light is very good for communication because the bits of lights don't talk to each other," Spiller explains. "You can send light over long distances -- for instance, with optic fibers -- and it preserves its state pretty well. It doesn't communicate with other bits of light -- or with much else, either. That's why you can have many different conversations going on at the same time in the same telephone cable and they don't interfere with each other."

Therein lies the problem. "To do any kind of data processing, the bits of data need to be able to interact," as they do in today's computer systems, Spiller says. "So on the face of it, light isn't good for information processing because the bits of light don't talk to each other. We need a process to get pieces of light at the quantum level to talk to each other."

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