"Photonic chips?"

Listening to these four words, everyone present couldn't help but be moved.

If you want to say what has attracted the most attention in recent years, it must be the chip.

Because of the suppression and restrictions of some countries, the development of our country's chip industry is very difficult, and it also makes it difficult for many industries that need chips.

It can be said that this has become an important obstacle restricting the development of our country's high-tech industry.

"I remember when you said at your press conference that this technology seems to be used for the manufacture of lens sets for extreme ultraviolet light sources, the core components of lithography machines?" For Wu Hao, the general who paid more attention to strategic support and support was a little puzzled.

Wu Hao nodded now when he heard this: "In fact, the principles are all the same, we use this manufacturing process, we can process multiple layers of lenses on one lens." Theoretically, this number can be infinite, depending on the thickness of the lens material.

The core of the lithography machine is the exposure machine, the so-called exposure machine is actually a beam of ultraviolet light source through a lens and a prismatic group to compress it to nano-level extreme ultraviolet light, so as to be used for the 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.

And our technology can simplify such a complex lens module. These lens modules are simply engraved or printed in a special piece of transparent glass according to the relevant layout, thus highly centralizing the large exposure machine lenses.

This not only produces an EUV light source that is not only pure, but also shorter and sharper in wavelength, enabling the manufacture of chips with smaller processes.

Secondly, compared to complex and expensive exposure machines, it seems that the technology is not only relatively simple in structure, but also can greatly reduce costs. ”

After explaining, Wu Hao said back: "Then when it comes to photonic chips, it can also be called photonic computers."

The so-called photonic computer is a new type of computer that uses optical signals for numerical operation, logical operation, information storage and processing.

It consists of optical components and equipment such as lasers, optical mirrors, lenses, and filters. The laser beam enters the array composed of mirrors and lenses for information processing, and photons are used instead of electrons, and optical computing replaces electrical computing.

The parallelism and high speed of light naturally determine that the photonic computer has strong parallel processing capabilities and ultra-high computing speed.

Photonic computers are also similar to the human brain's fault tolerance, and if a component in the system is damaged or error-free, it does not affect the final calculation result.

The information distortion and distortion caused by the transmission of photons in the optical medium are very small, the energy consumption and heat dissipation during optical transmission and conversion are extremely low, and the requirements for environmental conditions are much lower than those of electronic computers. ”

As he spoke, Wu Hao pointed to the brilliant cube in front of him and said to everyone.

"According to the idea and structure of integrated circuits, we or countless scientists who have conducted research in this area envision a variety of optoelectronic components concentrated on a single chip to create an integrated optical path.

As you know, the so-called chip is actually a large-scale micro integrated circuit. What we need to do is to replace the large-scale integrated circuits in the chip with integrated optical paths.

In fact, research in this area began for a long time, and since 1970, a new 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 technology, a variety of photonic integrated devices have been successfully developed.

The overall system of optical memory, optical switch, light source, and optical waveguide is made on a single chip.

Even polarizers, filters, optical amplifiers, optical modulators, lenses, prisms, gratings, optical attenuators and other optical components are made on a motherboard, which greatly reduces the space occupied by the optical path and makes a micro-integrated optical path.

It is used for high-speed transmission and processing of optical signals, and achieves low power consumption, high performance, convenience, and high efficiency.

The brilliant cube you see in front of you is the most core photonic chip in a photonic computer we have made.

Of course, it's just a model, not a finished product. After all, the entire photonic computer is a complex system engineering, and this alone is far from enough.

However, we have also established a photonic computer and integrated optical path research project with the optics and computer departments of several universities.

At present, the project is progressing smoothly, and the photonic chip model we see now is actually derived from one of the proof-of-principle models of this project team. ”

Hearing Wu Hao's introduction, everyone couldn't help but focus their eyes on this brilliant cube.

Although we don't know much about photonic computers, everyone knows that they represent the future development direction of computer technology.

It is said that its performance will be N times that of today's traditional computers. It could be a complex mathematical formula that the fastest supercomputer today would take months to compute, while with a photonic computer, it could take a few seconds.

With such a very fast photonic computer, it will really change the current life of human beings.

Cutting-edge technologies, such as astrophysics, life materials, chemistry and pharmaceuticals, and national defense engineering will all bring about leapfrog development.

If there is such a photonic computer with amazing computing power, the research and development progress of these projects will be greatly accelerated.

For example, new types of nuclear weapons, such as the fourth-generation nuclear weapons that major nuclear powers have been vying to research in recent years, the metal nitrogen "N2 bomb".

Its power is not only greater than that of the most powerful nuclear weapon of mankind, the hydrogen bomb, but also more environmentally friendly and pollution-free.

In the study of such sophisticated weapons, super-large calculations are indispensable, which involves countless data formulas.

If such a photonic computer can be added to surpass all current supercomputers, it will greatly catalyze the development progress of the entire project. Completing the development of such ultra-short weapons earlier than others will greatly strengthen our country's national defense capabilities.

So, looking at the brilliant cube in front of them, everyone's eyes lit up.

"Good stuff, good technology!"

"I think this technology and this project must be taken seriously, it is not enough for you and a few universities to do research, there should be more scientific research forces to join.

For example, domestic research institutes and laboratories in related fields, as well as some scientific research forces of our military should also join in. ”

General Xiao patted Wu Hao and said solemnly: "Time is running out, in the face of the current complex international situation, if our country wants to rejuvenate and rise, it is inseparable from the help of such a Zhenguo artifact that plays a supporting and promoting role in various fields." ”