Conventional wisdom has it that as long as data is stored as a charge, CMOS will likely remain king-of-the-hill for electronic chips. Now, an ultra-low power alternative to charge that uses lasers to encode data as excitons inside insulators has been proposed by theorists at Johns Hopkins University. If experimental data confirms the theory, then ultra-low power computers based on this new optical phenomenon could someday use lasers to store data within crystalline insulators.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212101037
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