Energy-free superfast computing invented by scientists using light pulses

A computer-generated image of Apple’s first Irish data centre [credit: Apple]

Data centres consume a lot of electricity so this could be a big deal if scalable as claimed here.

Superfast data processing using light pulses instead of electricity has been created by scientists, reports Phys.org.

The invention uses magnets to record computer data which consume virtually zero energy, solving the dilemma of how to create faster data processing speeds without the accompanying high energy costs.

Today’s data centre servers consume between 2 to 5% of global electricity consumption, producing heat which in turn requires more power to cool the servers.

The problem is so acute that Microsoft has even submerged hundreds of its data centre services in the ocean in an effort to keep them cool and cut costs.

Most data are encoded as binary information (0 or 1 respectively) through the orientation of tiny magnets, called spins, in magnetic hard-drives. The magnetic read/write head is used to set or retrieve information using electrical currents which dissipate huge amounts of energy.

Now an international team publishing in Nature has solved the problem by replacing electricity with extremely short pulses of light—the duration of one trillionth of a second—concentrated by special antennas on top of a magnet.

This new method is superfast but so energy efficient that the temperature of the magnet does not increase at all.

The team includes Dr. Rostislav Mikhaylovskiy, formerly at Radboud University and now Lancaster University, Stefan Schlauderer, Dr. Christoph Lange and Professor Rupert Huber from Regensburg University, Professor Alexey Kimel from Radboud University and Professor Anatoly Zvezdin from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

They demonstrated this new method by pulsing a magnet with ultrashort light bursts (the duration of a millionth of a millionth of a second) at frequencies in the far infrared, the so called terahertz spectral range.

However, even the strongest existing sources of the terahertz light did not provide strong enough pulses to switch the orientation of a magnet to date.

The breakthrough was achieved by utilizing the efficient interaction mechanism of coupling between spins and terahertz electric field, which was discovered by the same team.

The scientists then developed and fabricated a very small antenna on top of the magnet to concentrate and thereby enhance the electric field of light. This strongest local electric field was sufficient to navigate the magnetization of the magnet to its new orientation in just one trillionth of a second.

The temperature of the magnet did not increase at all as this process requires energy of only one quantum of the terahertz light—a photon—per spin.

Full report here.
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Irish Independent — Revealed: Data centres to swallow 75pc of growth in Irish power demand

Quote: Data centres will consume up to 20pc of all electricity generated in the State within a decade, which will pose an enormous challenge for Ireland meeting its climate change targets.