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Updated: Feb 19, 2026

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

Published on: November 16, 2019

Calculating with light using a chip-scale all-optical abacus.

J Feldmann¹, M Stegmaier¹, N Gruhler¹

¹Institute of Physics, University of Muenster, Heisenbergstr. 11, 48149, Muenster, Germany.

Nature Communications

|November 3, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers developed an all-optical calculator, a photonic abacus, using phase-change materials. This device performs arithmetic operations, enabling faster, more efficient computing by processing and storing data optically.

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Area of Science:

Photonics
Materials Science
Computer Engineering

Background:

Traditional computers face limitations in processing and storage speed.
Integrating processing and storage is key for next-generation computing architectures.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate a novel all-optical computing element.
To integrate multistate data processing and storage on a single chip.

Main Methods:

Utilized functional phase-change materials integrated with nanophotonic chips.
Employed picosecond optical pulses for arithmetic operations.
Developed a scalable phase-change photonic network with optical addressing.

Main Results:

Successfully performed fundamental arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) optically.
Demonstrated multistate compute-and-store functionality.
Showcased carryover operations across multiple cells.

Conclusions:

The photonic abacus represents a significant step towards optical computing.
This framework paves the way for non-von Neumann architectures using light-based processing.