Optics, of course, uses lenses, prisms, and mirrors to manipulate light. Photonics treds much more lightly. Professor M. Andrews at McGill University in Montreal is working on making optical wires for optical computers. A conventional computer works by piping electrons around on silicon chips in patterns of micron-sized wires that make up integrated circuits. However, optical computers make use of optical integrated circuits which instead will pipe laser light around in patterns of transparent, very thin optical conductors called wave guides.
Optical wires are one form of wave guide.
Organic dye molecules can be designed to respond to laser light in such a way as to cause light waves to be in phase or out of phase. A similar program by Chemistry Professor A. Natansohn at Queen's University, Kingston and Physics Professor, P. Rochon at the Royal Military College, Kingston is aimed at the development of optical memory . In a typical CD, the information is inscribed as very small holes on the surface of a polymer material. A hole is a '1' while the uninscribed surface is a '0', thus permitting binary memory inscription. This means that only one set of information can be written.