photonic chips
Coverage of photonic chips in the Nexus archive.
- China team cuts 3D optical chip production time from hours to seconds
A Chinese research team has significantly reduced the production time for 3D optical chips, cutting it from hours to seconds. This advancement addresses manufacturing bottlenecks in photonic chip production, which is critical for next-generation AI hardware that uses light-based data transmission to overcome bandwidth and power limitations.
- Could China’s photonic chips help it leapfrog US on AI?
China opened a top-level optical computing laboratory in Shanghai after breakthroughs in photonic chips that could bypass US restrictions on AI development. The country began limited production of locally designed photonic chips, which use photons instead of silicon to process data.
- Scientists discover strange “narwhal” waves that trap light beyond known limits
Physicists at Peking University have discovered a new method to confine light beyond conventional limits using dielectric materials instead of metals. The breakthrough involves narwhal-shaped wavefunctions that trap light at deep-subwavelength volumes through a singular dispersion equation. This advance, called singulonics, could enable ultra-efficient photonic chips, quantum technologies, and high-resolution imaging tools.