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"It is believed that the best computer is to use electrical signals to deal with optical signals." Associate professor of physics, Northeastern University, Swadik Karl, said. For this reason, there is an urgent need for a chip integration device, which can not only use the light input, but also can use the power input to carry out logical operation.

The United States Northeastern University and Kyunghee University scientists published in the latest issue of "nature photonics" journal shows that their first integration of electronic and optical properties in an electronic chip, and developed a series of chips based on this innovative device, provides a scalable platform for manufacturing hybrid optical logic elements, but also represents the future of an optical computer manufacturer key breakthrough.

Last year, Carle and the school of mechanical and industrial engineering department associate professor Rong Junzhong (transliteration) cooperation found that if the carbon nanotubes and silicon connected to produce light induced current at the interface is faster than traditional photodiode in silicon metal interface. "This can help us to design an advanced device with a light switch, which can help us to design a sudden surge in current." Carle said.

According to physicist organization network reported on February 25th, they used this knowledge to develop a logical device based on photoelectric diode, connected by mixing carbon nanotubes and silicon, can use two kinds of optical and electrical input to control the output current. They also work with Quan Yongkun, a professor at the University of South Korea's national day, to run the computing model of these connections.

These newly developed innovative equipment, including three new components and an upgrade equipment. The first is the "gate" (AND-gate), need to have electronic and optical input and produces an output, this switch must also have two factors will trigger second; "or" (OR-gate), as long as one of the two photoreceptor input will produce an output; the third is a 4- bit photoelectric digital analog converter can be used to convert digital signals into analog signals, such as digital content MP3 file into the real music, this ability is very important.

Upgrade equipment is the 250 thousand micro chip integrated in an approximately 1 cm square wafer, the front is like a camera sensor. Although this device to give full play to the function but also more micro chip, but it can be used to test whether their assembly process can be repeated.

The researchers point out that the computer has to deal with billions of calculations per second, even if it is to output the simplest results. What if each step can be a little faster? Carle said, to improve their ability to deal with these steps, we must start from the beginning, this is what we do.