March 29, 2023

M-Dudes

Your Partner in The Digital Era

Constructing a Computer system With a One Atom

A new study demonstrates that even the most fundamental building blocks of issue, atoms, can serve as a computing repository exactly where all enter and output processing occurs via optical signifies.

New research broaden the perspectives on what constitutes a “computer” and how smaller a computational unit can be.

When we outline a “computer” as any system that procedures data via input and output, it raises the thoughts of what objects can conduct these computations and how modest can these personal computers be. With transistors reaching the restrictions of miniaturization, discovering answers to these thoughts gets to be vital, as they could guide to the growth of a new computing paradigm.

In a new study revealed in the journal EPJ Moreover by researchers from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, Gerard McCaul and his crew exhibit that atoms, just one of the most essential developing blocks of issue,  can act as a reservoir for computing exactly where all input-output processing is optical.

“We experienced the idea that the capacity for computation is a universal property that all actual physical devices share, but within that paradigm, there is a good profusion of frameworks for how a single would go about truly making an attempt to execute computations,” McCaul suggests.

He adds that a person of the most vital of these frameworks is neuromorphic or reservoir computing with a neuromorphic personal computer aiming to mimic the brain. This thought underpins the explosive development of

The team proposed a non-linear single-atom computer with the input information encoded directly into light and the output also in the form of light. The calculation is then determined by filters that the light output is passed through.

“Our research confirmed this approach works in principle, as well as confirming the fact that the system performed better when the input light was designed to induce a higher degree of non-linearity in the system,” McCaul says. “I would probably argue that what we are trying to emphasize with this work is that the minimal system capable of computing really does exist on the level of a single atom and that computation can be performed purely with optical processes.”

Reference: “Towards single atom computing via high harmonic generation” by Gerard McCaul, Kurt Jacobs and Denys I. Bondar, 5 February 2023, The European Physical Journal Plus.
DOI: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03649-3