March 15, 2007 Physicists at the University of Bath will soon begin a research project which could be an important step towards the development of photonic computers – devices run using light rather than electronics – onto the desktop. The project involves research into at to second technology – the ability to send out light in a continuous series of pulses that last only an at to second, one billion-billionth of a second. The research could not only develop the important technology of photonics, but could give physicists that chance to look at the world of atomic structure very closely for the first time.

In June Dr Fetah Benabid, of the Department of Physics at Bath, will lead a team of researchers to develop a new technique which would enable them to synthesise ‘waveforms’ using light photons with the same accuracy as electrons are used in electronics. Waveform synthesis is the ability to control very precisely the way that electric fields vary their energy.