Light-based optical logic gates operate much faster than their electronic counterparts and could be crucial for meeting the ever-growing demand for more efficient and ultrafast data processing and transfer. A new type of “optical chirality” logic gate developed by researchers at Aalto University works about a million times faster than existing technologies.
Like electrons and molecules, photons have a so-called intrinsic degree of freedom known as chirality (or handedness). Optical chirality, which is defined by left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized light, shows great promise for fundamental research and applications such as quantum technologies, chiral nonlinear optics, sensing, imaging and the emerging field of “valleytronics”.
To read more, click here.