[HN Gopher] A promising 3-terminal diode for wireless comm. and ...
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       A promising 3-terminal diode for wireless comm. and optically
       driven computing
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2024-05-18 03:55 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (techxplore.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (techxplore.com)
        
       | blueflow wrote:
       | The ability to be both receiver and transmitter is a red
       | herring.. every optical semiconductor can do that. The innovation
       | here is the modulation speed. Higher speeds for your fiber cable.
        
         | rapatel0 wrote:
         | Thanks for pointing this out. I was confused when I initially
         | read the article.
         | 
         | Only have access to the abstract but it looks like they are
         | basically converting optical diode to a BJT to modulate bias
         | current. (Might be pulling this out of my 6'o'clock positioned
         | chemical vapor deposition chamber though, haha)
        
       | kazinator wrote:
       | The word "diode" is linguistically built on the concept that it's
       | a two-terminal device: "di" means two, "-ode" is the same as in
       | "electrode", "anode", "cathode", ...
       | 
       | A three-terminal device is a triode. However, unlike diode, that
       | term is used exclusively for the vaccuum ones: i.e. arrangements
       | of an anode, cathode and grid. With diodes we have semiconductor
       | diodes as well as vacuum (or thermionic) diodes.
        
         | rational_indian wrote:
         | Technically it is a triode but that word would be misleading
         | here since this device is more like a diode with a MOSFET like
         | insulated gate.
        
           | dfox wrote:
           | And the hollow-state triode is more or less the same thing as
           | JFET, except it needs higher bias voltages.
        
           | kazinator wrote:
           | That word would be misleading because it has been taken to
           | refer to vacuum tubes.
           | 
           | I would call this a "trioptode". That incorporates the "tri"
           | and "ode", plus a reference to that it is optical: the third
           | terminal modulates light.
        
             | detourdog wrote:
             | I will start refer to them as trioltodes.
        
               | ggm wrote:
               | and an octet of data carried through a gate like this is
               | a... Trilobyte?
        
               | MadnessASAP wrote:
               | I have chosen LET, Light Emitting Triode, in the 2
               | minutes I have known about this
        
               | viraptor wrote:
               | Can't wait for all the confusion in LET/LED
               | pronunciation.
        
       | OvidStavrica wrote:
       | "Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China
       | (USTC)'s iGAN Laboratory led by Prof. Haiding Sun and other
       | institutes in China recently developed a new three-terminal diode
       | that can both emit and detect light."
       | 
       | Considering the topic of a new photo-diode, the professor's name
       | is perhaps unfortunate.*
       | 
       | * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpP2S6c74Ts
        
       | banish-m4 wrote:
       | So it's a detector and an LED smashed together instead of
       | combining discrete components into a TXRX module. It sounds more
       | like a triode or transistor variant, but with multiple features.
        
       | westurner wrote:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36310594#36356444 :
       | 
       | > _What is the maximum presumed distance over which photon
       | emissions from blue [sapphire,] LEDs can be entangled? What about
       | with [time-synchronized] applied magnetic fields? Could newer
       | waveguide approaches - for example, dual beams - improve the
       | distance and efficiency of transceivers operating with such a
       | quantum communication channel?_
       | 
       | > [...]
       | 
       | >> _Physicists at the University of Konstanz have generated one
       | of the shortest signals ever produced by humans: Using paired
       | laser pulses, they succeeded in compressing a series of electron
       | pulses to a numerically analyzed duration of only
       | 0.000000000000000005 seconds_ [...]
       | 
       | >> _For Peter Baum, physics professor and head of the Light and
       | Matter Group at the University of Konstanz, these results are
       | still clearly basic research, but he emphasizes the great
       | potential for future research: "If a material is hit by two of
       | our short pulses at a variable time interval, the first pulse can
       | trigger a change and the second pulse can be used for observation
       | --similar to the flash of a camera"_
       | 
       | - "Fiber-optic data transfer speeds hit a rapid 301 Tbps"
       | (2024-03) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39864107
        
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