Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: etchmeister who wrote (17112)	1/12/2006 7:25:44 AM
From: robert b furman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Hi Etch, Correct me if I have this wrong but today is the 12th,Thursday So last friday was the first friday of the month. This Friday is the second Friday the 13th and option expiration is next friday the 20th. So this is the very volatile week before option expiration. So far every dip in the A.M. has been met with buying.Of course the week before is famous for up one day and down the next. Only two more trading days left to go with possible carry over next week. But earnings start in earnest next week and I'm thinking both earnings and guidance will surprise to the up side (rare event there,but inventories are light vs heavy this year - should bode well). JMHO Bob Edit look at GLW - which was dead to the future with the world in never ending supply of dark fiber - LCD comes around and life emerges. Take new products and distribute them over more growing economies and you've got a rightsized tech surprising.

To: etchmeister who wrote (17112)	1/12/2006 8:31:05 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Toshiba claims entangled photon breakthrough By Rupert Goodwins Special to CNET News.com Published: January 11, 2006, 2:02 PM PST Researchers at Cambridge University and Toshiba have announced a new quantum device that produces entangled photons, a promising technology for quantum encryption. Consisting of pairs of photons of light whose fundamental properties are inextricably linked, the technology has attracted increasing interest over the past 10 years. It has many possible uses in addition to encryption, including communications, quantum computing, medical imaging and chip production. The device is important for two reasons, said Andrew Shields, head of the Quantum Information group at Toshiba Research Europe. First, it's made from ordinary semiconductors; second, it produces entangled photons on command. "For the first time, we can produce pulses of photons that are regular and reliable enough to be used as a clock in quantum computing, for example, from something we can make almost as easily as any other semiconductor," Shields said in an interview. Inside the device Mostly made from gallium arsenide, a common semiconductor already widely used in fast logic and optoelectronics, the device's key components are quantum dots of indium arsenide 12 nanometers in diameter and 6 nanometers high. (In comparison, a human hair measures about 100,000 nanometers in width.) "The indium arsenide self-organizes into the dots, like raindrops on a car bonnet," Shields said. "We found that the key was producing the dots with a high degree of symmetry, and the physics of the materials does that for us." In use, the dot is excited by a laser pulse, which energizes two electrons in the indium arsenide. That energy is then converted into two entangled photons at slightly different frequencies, which can be split off and transported independently outside the device. Currently, the light is in the near-infrared frequency range, with a wavelength of around 900 nanometers. The device itself has to be cooled to extremely low temperatures. "There's no reason, in theory, why we can't replicate this effect at room temperature, and we've already seen emission at 1,300 nanometers where telecommunications lasers work," Shields said. "There are challenges still to be overcome, and I'd expect to see this in production in three to four years." With pairs of entangled photons, the state of one can be deduced by measuring the state of the other. Combining this with statistical techniques, it's possible to send encryption keys to a remote location and to be sure they haven't been intercepted. Another use is in chip production. By combining two entangled photons on a single focused spot, they can be made to behave as if they were one photon with half the wavelength and twice the energy. As the smallest possible feature that can be made on a chip depends on the wavelength, this technique could be used to halve the current theoretical minimum--doubling the number of devices on a silicon wafer. The same technique can be used to produce light microscope images much finer than before. "Analogy with developments after the invention of the semiconductor laser suggests there may be many more applications that we have not yet even imagined", Shields said in a statement.