The physics of optical computing. McMahon, P. L. Nature Reviews Physics, 5(12):717–734, December, 2023. Publisher: Nature Publishing Group![The physics of optical computing [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper doi abstract bibtex There has been a resurgence of interest in optical computing since the early 2010s, both in academia and in industry, with much of the excitement centred around special-purpose optical computers for neural-network processing. Optical computing has been a topic of periodic study since the 1960s, including for neural networks in the 1980s and early 1990s, and a wide variety of optical-computing schemes and architectures have been proposed. In this Perspective article, we provide a systematic explanation of why and how optics might be able to give speed or energy-efficiency benefits over electronics for computing, enumerating 11 features of optics that can be harnessed when designing an optical computer. One often-mentioned motivation for optical computing — that the speed of light is fast — is emphatically not a key differentiating physical property of optics for computing; understanding where an advantage could come from is more subtle. We discuss how gaining an advantage over state-of-the-art electronic processors will likely only be achievable by careful design that harnesses more than 1 of the 11 features, while avoiding a number of pitfalls that we describe.
@article{mcmahon_physics_2023,
title = {The physics of optical computing},
volume = {5},
copyright = {2023 Springer Nature Limited},
issn = {2522-5820},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-023-00645-5},
doi = {10.1038/s42254-023-00645-5},
abstract = {There has been a resurgence of interest in optical computing since the early 2010s, both in academia and in industry, with much of the excitement centred around special-purpose optical computers for neural-network processing. Optical computing has been a topic of periodic study since the 1960s, including for neural networks in the 1980s and early 1990s, and a wide variety of optical-computing schemes and architectures have been proposed. In this Perspective article, we provide a systematic explanation of why and how optics might be able to give speed or energy-efficiency benefits over electronics for computing, enumerating 11 features of optics that can be harnessed when designing an optical computer. One often-mentioned motivation for optical computing — that the speed of light is fast — is emphatically not a key differentiating physical property of optics for computing; understanding where an advantage could come from is more subtle. We discuss how gaining an advantage over state-of-the-art electronic processors will likely only be achievable by careful design that harnesses more than 1 of the 11 features, while avoiding a number of pitfalls that we describe.},
language = {en},
number = {12},
urldate = {2024-04-29},
journal = {Nature Reviews Physics},
author = {McMahon, Peter L.},
month = dec,
year = {2023},
note = {Publisher: Nature Publishing Group},
keywords = {Optoelectronic devices and components, Transformation optics},
pages = {717--734},
}
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