Structure and Implementation Principles of a Photonic Computer

Abstract

A structure and implementation principles of a photonic computer are proposed. Its operation is based on the effects of interaction between coherent light wave systems generated by a laser source. The performance of photonic computers, their power consumption, and physical dimensions are estimated. These estimates indicate a great potential advantage of photonic computers over electronic ones. In particular, analysis carried out in this study and the obtained estimates demonstrate that a photonic computer working on the light with a wavelength of 1530 can operate 104 – 105 times faster than up-to-date electronic computers with the same power consumption. Light waves of different wavelengths do not interact with each other. With a proper OLG implementation, several computations represented by light waves of different wavelengths can be run on a single photonic computer.