http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=594743

Aussie device 'could speed up web 100 times'

Australian scientists have developed a prototype of a photonic chip that could increase internet speeds by up to 100 times.

The device — which eliminates the need to convert light to electricity during the transfer of data — would greatly increase the speed of fibre networks without the need for massive infrastructure upgrades.

Centre for Ultra-high-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) director Professor Ben Eggleton said the chip was created using a special type of glass called chalcogenide, which was engraved to create a circuit that could direct data at an incredible rate.

"This is a very, very fast switch and it's going to allow networks — the existing fibre in the ground — to move more data without increasing costs," he said.

"The switch is error free: people have demonstrated fast switches before but they often had errors [and] internet users won't accept that."

Fibre optic cables allow data to be transmitted over long distances in the form of light but this transfer of information is hindered by standard switches that link the cables at various points.

These turn the data into slower-moving electronic energy that is prone to interference, creating bottlenecks for the massive amounts of information moving across the internet.

A photonic switch could eliminate the need to convert the data from photons (light) to electrons (electricity) at a number of stages as it moves through networks.

Professor Eggleton said the tiny etchings on the chip CUDOS developed turned it into something that resembled a "photonic transistor", allowing massive amounts of data to be directed at high speed.

"[It's] kind of like when trains are switched from one track to another, except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks," he said.

"This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million times."

CUDOS has developed its research prototype chip one year ahead of its deadline and has managed to achieve data transfer rates of 640 gigabytes per second — around 60 times faster than current Telstra networks.

Very interesting development .
This will not just speed up the web and provide better quality world wide web it will also hasten all telecommunications as they travel through fibre optic cables (in most hi tech developed countries) and will provide better quality telecommunications as the fast moving photons are not converted into the slower moving electronic energy, which is highly sussceptible to interference as a result of changing magnetic fields and other factors.

Absolutely, not only that next generation optical systems will be based on these photonic chips and the size of these chips is only in millimetres!!

Anyway I thought this would be a good topic to start but looks like people here are more into politics and not technology!! Come on people why the heck are you so boring???

incredible. Already data transfer speeds are remarkably fast than what we expected 20 years ago.

:-) one pico = one millionth???? Now that is the real revolution!

Your wrong there one pico-second is just 10^-12 seconds (way under one millionth)! Now that is the real revolution lol!

Indeed these photonic chips can really revolutionise telecommunications and the internet.

I too am deeply interested in science and technology but the problem is there are few threads and the main areas of interest on this forum in particular are politics and media. There was a thread about 3 weeks ago about genetically engineered bacteria that secreted oil i found that thread extremely interesting the problem was that i was one of the only people contributing to it.

According to my religious teacher genetically engineering plants, bacteria etc is ok but genetically engineering animals is haram just thought it would be of something of interest relating to that old threas.

Need more reply's everyone we lack science and technology threads on this forum so it would be good to engage in them.

American is now angry.