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"Basically, any computing device (or switch, or router) that is based on light requires a nonlinear interaction between different light beams, but light doesn't like to do nonlinear stuff. With current technology, you can get efficient nonlinear optical interactions, but the hardware is kind of bulky or very delicate. Not the sort of thing you want to put in a billion devices. What my friends in Barcelona have demonstrated is that it's possible to create a relatively efficient optical nonlinear interaction in a nano-structured metallic surface. "

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2010) - IBM scientists have unveiled a new chip technology that integrates electrical and optical devices on the same piece of silicon, enabling computer chips to communicate using pulses of light (instead of electrical signals), resulting in smaller, faster and more power-efficient chips than is possible with conventional technologies.

Graphene-based modulators could soon allow consumers to stream full-length, high-definition, 3-D movies onto a smartphone in a matter of seconds, the researchers said.