
What's after electrical charges and electricity in computer storage? Lasers and excitons. Theorists from the John Hopkins University have drafted a theory that uses low-power lasers and crystalline insulators to store data. In the theory, lasers would excite electrons in a crystalline-like lattice in order to record data; the atoms would vibrate at a certain frequency to indicate the type of bit. A side effect of using lasers and insulators is reduced heat output. The heat is reduced because the atoms do not exchanging electrons as current computer components do. The
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What can be made into memory can be made into logic gates as well. Think about it a moment - a memory cell is a logic gate with but two functions: x = constant; and return x. Making logic elements will take more structures, but isn't any harder to make than memory.