CORVALLIS — What if we told you physicists at Oregon State University believe they can manipulate light waves so that, working in conjunction with special materials, current silicon-based computer chips would become obsolete?

Yawn.

Now, what if we told you that such technology could be the building blocks for computers that are 100 to 1,000 times faster than they are today?

That gets your attention, doesn’t it?

Assistant professor Viktor Podolskiy and Alexander Govyadinov, who is working toward a doctorate in physics, have spent two years developing a computer model they are certain will work when taken from the drawing board to hands-on systems. Their findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Light manipulation as a communications conduit isn’t new. You need look no further than fiberoptics to see an example of how that technology has aided high-speed communication around the world.

Podolskiy said photonics have a key advantage over current computer technology, which uses electrons to translate messages through tiny wires embedded onto silicon chips. Those electrons have mass and generate heat. They are also nearing their maximum speed.

Light waves, composed of photons, don’t have mass and travel at a greater rate of speed — up to 1 million times faster than electrons.

“This isn’t science fiction. We should be able to do this,” explained Podolskiy, who has degrees from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and New Mexico State University. He has also completed postdoctoral work at Princeton University.

Like its silicon-based predecessor technology, photonics will be expensive at first and will take up more space. Podolskiy reminds people to be patient; the first computers were huge.

The new technology would use tiny waveguides combined with a “gain material” — a solid or liquid medium that emits light — to compress light into minute spaces. The combination would be comparable in size to present-day microprocessors and would be able to control the speed of light pulses. The light could be slowed, stopped or re-shaped. In fact, pulses transmitted through the special materials could appear on the other end before they get in. Podolskiy said that scientific fact has already been proved.

The findings are the first step toward manipulating light waves that will eventually function like modern-day transistors and switches, Govyadinov said. Computers basically open and close circuits based on a mathematical language that gives yes or no responses at a very high rate. Those optical switches — 1,000 times slimmer than a human hair — could eventually be integrated into circuits that transfer signals much more rapidly than they do today.

When the technology is perfected, the physicists say it will really put the “instant” in instant messaging.

“This could mean real real time,” Govyadinov said. “You could fly an airplane while you are seated in your living room.”

The physicists are working with ONAMI — the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute — to secure funding to conduct product development tests.

“We are confident this will work,” Podolskiy said. “We used information about real material properties for our computer simulations.”

What does the future hold?

“People will find ways to utilize this power,” Podolskiy said of its potential.

Alex Paul can be reached at alex.paul@lee.net or 812-6076.