(Press-News.org) Computers that function like the human brain could soon become a reality thanks to new research using optical fibres made of speciality glass.
The research, published in Advanced Optical Materials, has the potential to allow faster and smarter optical computers capable of learning and evolving.
Researchers from the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, UK, and Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies (CDPT) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, have demonstrated how neural networks and synapses in the brain can be reproduced, with optical pulses as information carriers, using special fibres made from glasses that are sensitive to light, known as chalcogenides.
The project, funded under Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Advanced Optics in Engineering programme, was conducted within The Photonics Institute (TPI), a recently established dual institute between NTU and the ORC.
Co-author Professor Dan Hewak from the ORC, says: "Since the dawn of the computer age, scientists have sought ways to mimic the behaviour of the human brain, replacing neurons and our nervous system with electronic switches and memory. Now instead of electrons, light and optical fibres also show promise in achieving a brain-like computer. The cognitive functionality of central neurons underlies the adaptable nature and information processing capability of our brains."
In the last decade, neuromorphic computing research has advanced software and electronic hardware that mimic brain functions and signal protocols, aimed at improving the efficiency and adaptability of conventional computers.
However, compared to our biological systems, today's computers are more than a million times less efficient. Simulating five seconds of brain activity takes 500 seconds and needs 1.4 MW of power, compared to the small number of calories burned by the human brain.
Using conventional fibre drawing techniques, microfibers can be produced from chalcogenide (glasses based on sulphur) that possess a variety of broadband photoinduced effects, which allow the fibres to be switched on and off. This optical switching or light switching light, can be exploited for a variety of next generation computing applications capable of processing vast amounts of data in a much more energy-efficient manner.
Co-author Dr Behrad Gholipour explains: "By going back to biological systems for inspiration and using mass-manufacturable photonic platforms, such as chalcogenide fibres, we can start to improve the speed and efficiency of conventional computing architectures, while introducing adaptability and learning into the next generation of devices."
By exploiting the material properties of the chalcogenides fibres, the team led by Professor Cesare Soci at NTU have demonstrated a range of optical equivalents of brain functions. These include holding a neural resting state and simulating the changes in electrical activity in a nerve cell as it is stimulated. In the proposed optical version of this brain function, the changing properties of the glass act as the varying electrical activity in a nerve cell, and light provides the stimulus to change these properties. This enables switching of a light signal, which is the equivalent to a nerve cell firing.
The research paves the way for scalable brain-like computing systems that enable 'photonic neurons' with ultrafast signal transmission speeds, higher bandwidth and lower power consumption than their biological and electronic counterparts.
Professor Cesare Soci said: "This work implies that 'cognitive' photonic devices and networks can be effectively used to develop non-Boolean computing and decision-making paradigms that mimic brain functionalities and signal protocols, to overcome bandwidth and power bottlenecks of traditional data processing."
INFORMATION:
Scientists on two continents have independently discovered a set of celestial objects that seem to belong to the rare category of dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
Dwarf galaxies are the smallest known galaxies, and they could hold the key to understanding dark matter, and the process by which larger galaxies form.
A team of researchers with the Dark Energy Survey, headquartered at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and an independent group from the University of Cambridge jointly announced their findings ...
People who lose their jobs are less willing to trust others for up to a decade after being laid-off, according to new research from The University of Manchester.
Being made redundant or forced into unemployment can scar trust to such an extent that even after finding new work this distrust persists, according to the new findings of social scientist Dr James Laurence. This means that the large-scale job losses of the recent recession could lead to a worrying level of long-term distrust among the British public and risks having a detrimental effect on the fabric of society.
Dr ...
DARIEN, IL - A new study finds that obstructive sleep apnea is associated with a significantly increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, and this risk is reduced when sleep apnea is treated effectively using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy.
Results show that patients with sleep apnea were nearly 2.5 times more likely to be the driver in a motor vehicle accident, compared with a control group of other drivers in the general population. Further risk analysis found that severe excessive daytime sleepiness, a short sleep duration of 5 hours or less, and ...
Many mammals -- and some birds -- escape the winter by hibernating for three to nine months. This period of dormancy permits species which would otherwise perish from the cold and scarce food to survive to see another spring. The Middle East, with temperate winters, was until recently considered an unlikely host for hibernating mammals.
New research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London by Tel Aviv University researchers is set to not only correct this fallacy but also change the very concept of hibernation. Prof. Noga Kronfeld-Schor, Chair of the Department ...
Natural forces have always caused the climate on Earth to fluctuate. Now researchers have found geological evidence that some of the same forces as today were at play 1.4 billion years ago.
Fluctuating climate is a hallmark of Earth, and the present greenhouse effect is by far the only force affecting today's climate. On a larger scale the Earth's climate is also strongly affected by how the Earth orbits around the sun; this is called orbital forcing of climate change. These changes happen over thousands of years and they bring ice ages and warming periods.
Now researchers ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio - New clinical-trial findings provide further evidence that combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy is the best treatment for people with a low-grade form of brain cancer.
The findings come from a phase II study co-led by a researcher at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) and researchers at the University of Maryland and at London Regional Cancer Program in Ontario, Canada.
The study shows that patients with low-grade gliomas and at high risk ...
Established ways of measuring carbon emissions can sometimes give misleading feedback on how national policies affect global emissions. In some cases, countries are even rewarded for policies that increase global emissions, and punished for policies that contribute to reducing them.
"We have developed a new method that provides policy makers with more useful information, in order to set national targets and evaluate their climate policies", says Astrid Kander, Professor in Economic History at Lund University, and lead author of the study, published in the latest issue ...
What inspires people to support conservation? As concerns grow about the sustainability of modern society, this question becomes more important. A new study by a team of researchers from Clemson University and Cornell University offers one simple answer: birdwatching and hunting.
Their survey of conservation activity among rural landowners in Upstate New York considered a range of possible predictors, such as gender, age, education, political ideology and beliefs about the environment. All other factors being equal, birdwatchers are about five times as likely, and hunters ...
A study of a recently discovered fossil published by LMU zoologists reveals the specimen to be the oldest known crab larva: The fossil is 150 million years old, but looks astonishingly modern.
To catch living crab larvae, all you have to do is trawl a plankton-net in the nearest bay or tidal pool. Finding fossilized crab larvae is rather more difficult - as witnessed by the fact that the specimen described in "Nature Communications" today by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich zoologists Joachim and Carolin Haug, and Joel Martin of the Natural History Museum ...
The increasing strength of winds over the Southern Ocean has extended its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, effectively delaying the impacts of global warming.
New research published in the Journal of Physical Research found the intensifying wind over that ocean increased the speed and energy of eddies and jets, which are responsible in large part for the movement of nutrients, heat and salt across the ocean basin.
The increased movement and overturning of these eddies and jets has accelerated the carbon cycle and driven more heat into the deep ocean.
"Considering ...
