www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/27/photon.chips/index.html
Pairs of so-called entangled photons possess esoteric characteristics that could allow manufacturers to produce far superior computer chips than current technology allows, said a team of international researchers. Technicians use streams of laser light particles to sculpt transistor components on computer chips. The smaller the transistors, the more they can be squeezed on a chip and the faster the chip operates. The most modern chips have transistors as small as 180 nanometers, more than 400 times narrower than the width of a human hair. But chip manufacturers should not be able to produce features smaller than 124 nanometers, according to a main principal of optics known as Rayleigh criterion. Theoretically, entangled light particles would bypass the physical constraint and work twice as efficiently as conventional laser beams and produce transistors as small as 64 nanometers. A pair of entangled photons would travel together and behave as a single unit when aimed at two possible paths. While scientists could not determine which path they take, in quantum mechanics each photon would actually travel down both. The strange effect would give the photons the ability to cut down the size of computer chips, the scientists said. But it hasn't been shown before that it might be applied the manufacture of computer chips," said Barbara Wilson, chief technologist at JPL in Pasadena, California. Quantum mechanics deal with the nature of atomic and subatomic particles or wave forces, which often exhibit bizarre behavior that conventional physics cannot explain. But scientists still need plenty of time to conduct laboratory experiments, Wilson cautioned. RELATED STORIES: 112 Intel says faulty Pentium III will return in 'couple months' August 30, 2000 113 Researchers build DNA motor that may lead to faster computer chips August 9, 2000 114 Component shortages becoming critical June 26, 2000 115 New low-power Crusoe chip will make laptops run longer June 23, 2000 116 AMD's low-cost Duron chip takes aim at Celeron June 20, 2000 RELATED SITES: 117 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 118 University of Wales, Aberystwyth 119 Physical Review Letters Note: Pages will open in a new browser window External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
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