Nonlinear Optics and Optical Computing: 49 (Ettore Majorana International Science Series) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306435853 ISBN 13: 9780306435850

Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1990

Synopsis

The conference "Nonlinear Optics and Optical Computing" was held May 11-19, 1988 in Erice, Sicily. This was the 13th conference organized by the International School of Quantum Electronics, under the auspices of the "Ettore Majorana" Center for Scientific Culture. This volume contains both the invited and contributed papers presented at the conference, providing tutorial background, the latest research results, and future directions for the devices, structures and architectures of optical computing. The invention of the transistor and the integrated circuit were followed by an explosion of application as ever faster and more complex microelectronics chips became available. The information revolution occa- sioned by digital computers and optical communications is now reaching the limits of silicon semiconductor technology, but the demand for faster com- putation is still accelerating. The fundamental limitations of information processing today derive from the performance and cost of three technical factors: speed, density, and software. Optical computation offers the potential for improvements in all three of these critical areas: Speed is provided by the transmission of impulses at optical veloc- ities, without the delays caused by parasitic capacitance in the case of conventional electrical interconnects. Speed can also be achieved through the massive parallelism characteristic of many optical computing architec- tures; Density can be provided in optical computers in two ways: by high spatial resolution, on the order of wavelengths of light, and by computa- tion or interconnection in three dimensions.

About this title

Synopsis

Before optical computer benefits can be realized in practice, considerable development is needed of the devices, structure, and architectures which exist today only in research laboratories. These conference papers treat both the fundamental devices and the computing architectures which will make possible the advanced computers of the future. The m

Edition details

• Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0306435853
• ISBN 13: 9780306435850
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 285
• Editor: Martellucci S., Chester A.N.