They will permit the refinement of waveguides the devices which, by carrying and directing light, act as the equivalent of the wires in an electronic circuit.

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The Bristol team's approach makes use of waveguides - channels etched into the chips that provide a path for the photons around the chips like the minuscule wires in conventional electronics.

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Patriot missile components including advanced radar waveguides, microwave devices, high-speed analog to digital converters, microprocessors, precision gimbals for the missile-seeker system, highly miniaturized radio frequency communications, on-board sensors, advanced signal-processing systems.

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While Professor O'Brien said he is confident that such waveguides are the logical choice for future optical quantum computers, he added that there is still a significant amount of work to do before they make it out of the laboratory.

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Dr Lin is already testing a waveguide designed to steer light with a wavelength of 1.5 microns, and he is also working on three-dimensional waveguides made of silicon, which will provide almost total control over the path the light takes, and make really complex optical circuits possible.

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