Traditional electronic microchips are rapidly approaching their physical limits, but researchers at the Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia (ISSP UL), are already working on a solution. A Latvian Television report highlights the scientists’ work on next-generation photonic microchips – an innovation that is rapidly gaining widespread recognition due to its potential to improve data processing and transmission in both current and future technologies.
In the news report, Arturs Bundulis, Leading Researcher at ISSP UL and Head of the “Phipic” project on the “BioPhoT” platform, explains how the research team replaces standard electrical signals with light, enabling data transmission at unprecedented speeds.
By integrating microscopic optical fibres directly onto the surface of the microchip, researchers can use different colours of light as parallel data streams.
“Instead of having one electrical signal carrying information, you have the entire rainbow, which can carry information in parallel,” Bundulis notes.
Beyond data processing speed and the potential for significantly faster internet and streaming services, this technology has two major advantages over traditional electronics:
- Unlike the ones and zeros of electrical signals, which are easy to read, the laws of physics prevent information encoded in a photon’s polarisation from being copied, thereby providing a new level of cybersecurity.
- Light transmission generates far less heat than the use of electricity, significantly reducing the need for energy-intensive cooling systems, for example in data centres.
The first prototypes of these next-generation microchips have already been developed and are currently being tested. “In principle, we are pioneers in Europe and, one might say, also in the world in trying to build such microchips,” Bundulis emphasised. As this innovative and economically viable technology becomes increasingly relevant, the “Phipic” project continues its work to make the future of “light-based computers” a reality here in Latvia.
