"Photonic chip?"
Hearing these four words, everyone present could not help but be moved.
If you want to say what has attracted the most attention in recent years, it must be chips.
Due to the suppression and restrictions of certain countries, the development of our country's chip industry has been very difficult, and it has also made it difficult for many industries that require chips.
This can be said to have become an important obstacle restricting the development of our country's high-tech industries.
"I remember you said at your press conference that this technology seems to be used in the manufacturing of lens groups for extreme ultraviolet light sources, the core component of lithography machines?" The generals who focused more on strategic support and support were a little dissatisfied with Wu Hao. Explain.
Wu Hao nodded when he heard this and said: "Actually, the principles are all the same. Using this manufacturing process, we can process multiple layers of lenses on one lens. Theoretically, this number can be infinite. It depends on the lens. What is the thickness of the material?
The core of the lithography machine is the exposure machine. The so-called exposure machine actually concentrates and compresses a beam of ultraviolet light source through a lens and prism group into nanoscale extreme ultraviolet light, which is used for exposure and etching of integrated circuits on silicon wafers.
To put it bluntly, an exposure machine is actually a sophisticated optical device composed of many complex lenses.
Our technology can simplify such complex lens modules. It is only necessary to engrave or print these lens modules in a special piece of transparent glass according to the relevant layout, thereby highly integrating the huge exposure machine lenses.
In this way, the extreme ultraviolet light source produced is not only pure, but also has a shorter wavelength, is sharper, and can produce smaller chips.
Secondly, compared to complex and expensive exposure machines, this technology not only has a simpler structure, but also can greatly reduce costs. "
After explaining it again, Wu Hao finally said back: "So, talking about photon chips, they can also be called photon computers.
The so-called photon computer is a new type of computer that uses optical signals to perform digital operations, logical operations, information storage and processing.
It consists of lasers, optical mirrors, lenses, filters and other optical components and equipment. The laser beam enters an array composed of mirrors and lenses for information processing, using photons instead of electrons, and optical operations instead of electrical operations.
The parallelism and high speed of light naturally determine that photonic computers have strong parallel processing capabilities and ultra-high computing speeds.
Photonic computers also have fault tolerance similar to the human brain. When a component in the system is damaged or makes an error, it does not affect the final calculation result.
The information distortion and distortion caused by the transmission of photons in optical media are extremely small. The energy consumption and heat dissipation during light transmission and conversion are extremely low. The requirements for environmental conditions are much lower than those of electronic computers. "
With that said, Wu Hao pointed at the bright cube in front of him and said to everyone.
“Based on the idea and structure of integrated circuits, we, or countless scientists conducting research in this area, envision integrating a variety of optoelectronic components on one chip to create integrated optical circuits.
As we all know, the so-called chips are actually large-scale micro-integrated circuits. What we have to do is to replace the large-scale integrated circuits in the chip with integrated optical circuits.
In fact, research in this area has begun long ago. Since 1970, an emerging discipline called integrated optics has emerged in the field of optics.
In recent years, through the development of optical communication, optical switching, and optical information processing technologies, a variety of photonic integrated devices have been successfully developed.
An overall system that combines optical memory, optical switches, light sources, and optical waveguides on one chip has been realized.
Even polarizers, filters, optical amplifiers, optical modulators, lenses, prisms, gratings, optical attenuators and other optical components are made into thin films on a motherboard, which greatly reduces the space occupied by the optical path and makes a Micro integrated optical circuit.
It is used for high-speed transmission and processing of optical signals, achieving low power consumption, high performance, convenience and high efficiency.
The bright cube you see in front of you is the core photonic chip in a photonic computer we created.
Of course, it's just a model, not a finished product. After all, the entire photonic computer is a complex system project, and this alone is not enough.
However, we have also established a photonic computer and integrated optical circuit research project group with the optics and computer departments of several universities.
This project is currently progressing smoothly. The photonic chip model we are seeing now actually comes from one of the principle verification models of this project team. "
After hearing Wu Hao's introduction, everyone couldn't help but focus on this bright cube.
Although not everyone knows much about photonic computers, everyone knows that they represent the development direction of future computer technology.
It is said that its performance will be N times that of current traditional computers. It may take several months for the fastest supercomputer to calculate a complex mathematical formula, but it may take several seconds for a photon computer.
With such extremely fast photon computers, it will truly change our current lives.
Cutting-edge technologies such as astrophysics, biological materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and national defense engineering will all bring about leap-forward development.
If nothing else, let’s talk about some ultra-sophisticated weapon research and development projects. If such a photon computer with amazing computing power is added, the research and development progress of these projects will be greatly accelerated.
For example, new nuclear weapons, such as the fourth-generation nuclear weapons that major nuclear powers have been researching in recent years, such as metallic nitrogen "N2 explosive bombs".
Not only is it more powerful than the hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon currently used by mankind, it is also more environmentally friendly and pollution-free.
In the research of such cutting-edge weapons, extremely large amounts of calculations are essential, which involves countless data formulas.
If such a photonic computer that surpasses all current supercomputers can be added, it will greatly catalyze the development progress of the entire project. Completing the research and development of this type of ultra-simple weapons earlier than others will greatly consolidate our country's national defense strength.
Therefore, when looking at the bright cube in front of them, everyone's eyes shone with light.
"Good stuff, good technology!"
"I think this technology and this project must be taken seriously. Just having you and a few universities research it is not enough. More scientific research forces should join in.
For example, domestic research institutes and laboratories in related fields, as well as some scientific research forces of our military, must also join in. "
General Xiao patted Wu Hao and said solemnly: "Time waits for us not. Facing the current complex international situation, if our country wants to revive and rise, it cannot do without such a national artifact that supports and promotes various fields." Help.”
