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New High-Tech Switch Could Lead to Optical Computers

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Researchers at Bell Laboratories have developed the first practical micro-electromechanical optical switch, which turns the flow of light on and off in the same manner in which a transistor controls the flow of electricity. Because the switches can be produced in large numbers in the same fashion that integrated circuits are, the development could lead to the first optical computers and networking systems, Bell researchers said Tuesday at a San Diego meeting of the Optical Fiber Communications Conference.

The device looks like a child’s seesaw with a mirror on one end. The mirrored end fits in a space about one-tenth as wide as a human hair, between two hair-thin optical fibers lined up end to end. Light normally passes from one cable to the next. But when a voltage is applied to the non-mirrored end of the switch, the mirror is raised into place between the ends, blocking the passage of light.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II

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