[simonh]

More a light detector than a logic gate really. To chain them together in a chip you’d need micron scale directional light emitters that also had signal to emission times at logic gate speed, and also consumed no more power and release no more heat than current logic gates. Otherwise you’re back to square one again because as the article points out it’s the power consumption that’s one of the major constraints and lasers consume a crapton of power. I don’t see how something like this could ever be practical.

This effect might be useful in optical communications systems though, where scale and power consumption isn’t as much of a constraint.

[ekkeke]

This was my first thought too. How are they planning on chaining these together? Sounds like a non-starter.