{"id":225646,"date":"2025-11-22T01:26:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T07:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/single-photon-switch-could-enable-photonic-computing"},"modified":"2025-11-22T01:26:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T07:26:37","slug":"single-photon-switch-could-enable-photonic-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/single-photon-switch-could-enable-photonic-computing","title":{"rendered":"Single-photon switch could enable photonic computing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/single-photon-switch-could-enable-photonic-computing.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are few technologies more fundamental to modern life than the ability to control light with precision. From fiber-optic communications to quantum sensors, the manipulation of photons underpins much of our digital infrastructure. Yet one capability has remained frustratingly out of reach: controlling light with light itself at the most fundamental level using single photons to switch or modulate powerful optical beams.<\/p>\n<p>Now, researchers at Purdue University have achieved this long-sought milestone, demonstrating what they call a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-03-scientists-door-quantum.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">photonic transistor<\/a>\u201d that operates at single-photon intensities.<\/p>\n<p>Their findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41565-025-02056-2\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal <i>Nature Nanotechnology<\/i>, report a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-06-glass-nanostructures-visible-photonics-assumptions.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">nonlinear refractive index<\/a> several orders of magnitude higher than the best-known materials, a leap that could finally make photonic computing practical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are few technologies more fundamental to modern life than the ability to control light with precision. From fiber-optic communications to quantum sensors, the manipulation of photons underpins much of our digital infrastructure. Yet one capability has remained frustratingly out of reach: controlling light with light itself at the most fundamental level using single photons [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}