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Are Optical Computers as PCs on the horizon?

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gjehle:
Iirc intel is down to 40nm now - that's pretty frigging small.

I wonder what the smallest scale we can reach are... I recall something about the laws of quantum mechanics setting some limits :)-f0dder (April 26, 2007, 10:17 AM)
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the (most) limiting factor right now is the photo process used to transfer the masks onto the waver.
structures are already starting to get smaller than the wavelength of visible light, which is countered by using shorter wavelength light (like UV) and special optical systems.

there have been experiments using electron rays or instead of light to transfer the masks several years ago.
it works, the structures are superbly sharp, but the process takes several hours for one layer.
not feasible.

another problem caused by getting the structures smaller and smaller is the fact that you use acid to get rid of the stuff you don't want.
acid doesn't know what sharp 90 degree turns are, everything starts getting rounded and blurred.
you also have to deal with acid not going straight down, but also sideways, basically eating away everything underneath the pathways you wanted to get by removing stuff around them.

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