For the first time implemented the technology of performing calculations, controlled by light

It is known that the basis of all electronic devices, from smart watches to supercomputer modules, are components, such as processors and memory, implemented in the form of semiconductor chips. These chips, in turn, consist of transistors arranged in the correct order on the surface of the silicon substrate. Such devices are already very small and their further miniaturization is hampered by the unusual behavior of matter at a level approaching the quantum limits. In this regard, scientists and engineers are constantly looking for new materials and develop technologies that can perform both logical operations and information storage functions.

Not so long ago, scientists from the University of Tokyo and the Japanese Research Institute RIKEN created a new device capable of performing basic logic and arithmetic operations. But the most interesting is that this device has a chemical nature, it takes advantage of the electric fields, and its operation is controlled by ultraviolet light. All this together opens up new opportunities for creating low-power, high-performance devices with sufficiently high computing power. 

The chemical nature of the new computing device provides not only a benefit in the amount of energy used by the device, this means that such devices can be manufactured in large quantities and rather cheaply using simple methods of chemical synthesis. 

The basis of a chemical computing device is a disk, on the surface of which there are special molecules that can assemble and acquire forms similar to the shape of a spiral staircase. These molecules are called columnar liquid crystals (CLC). Environmental changes caused by exposure to electric fields and light cause CLC molecules to form different forms as they grow. "This is one of the first implementations of the so-called programmed chemistry," write the researchers.

dailytechinfo.org