Took out some interesting paragraphs describing in brief, a history of POET and POET Technologies, out of an article posted here some time ago by maing.

What is POET?

POET is...(Planar Opto Electronic Technology). POET allows the integration of optics and electronics on a single chip, which is the breakthrough.

Back in the 1980s, a brilliant scientist named Geoffrey Taylor worked at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Among other things, he researched optical systems and semiconductors, including the above-noted gallium arsenide. It’s a long story, but Dr. Taylor left Bell Labs and took a job at the University of Connecticut, at Storrs.

Dr. Taylor then put together a team based on optical technologies through which to pursue his research.

They’ve developed a next-generation gallium arsenide semiconductor device, incorporating a technology called POET (Planar Opto Electronic Technology). POET allows the integration of optics and electronics on a single chip, which is the breakthrough.

So what are we talking about? With conventional semiconductors, like silicon, you can move electrons, but not photons (light particles), which are much smaller. But by developing the ability to handle photons, with gallium arsenide, you’re opening up entirely new capabilities.

First, with photons, you can now move down truly to the level of quantum computing — literally at the atomic level. This is important, because modern computing is at the edge of capabilities with electrons and bulky old silicon. If you know what “Moore’s law” is — long story — we’re about to see the last chapter written. So gallium arsenide is the next great leap for technology, setting computing up for the next 50 years or so.

According to Dr. Taylor, POET is a “disruptive technology” within many commercial and government markets. It overcomes critical problems for all manner of tasks, starting with the physical size and energy limitations of silicon chips.

In fact, the benefits of POET are analogous to what occurred with the first silicon integrated circuits, except now we see the improvement down at the atomic level, versus the much larger scales of silicon technology.

In practice, POET eliminates connectors, solder joints, assembly and multiple packaging steps. It decreases the size of a computer chip, as well as cost, complexity and power consumption. How about dramatically smaller supercomputers, which don’t require air conditioners the size of a railway car?

At the same time, POET technology is versatile. It’s possible to integrate POET with incumbent silicon tech. Thus, while POET is revolutionary, it’s also compatible with much of the world’s existing capabilities. In other words, POET does not require a brand-new “tech ecosystem” if it is to gain market traction.

POET immediately addresses the requirements of numerous military development and procurement programs for improved sensors, faster and more secure communications, improved memory and storage and overall computing power. There’s no end to the transformation in computing power, imaging, target definition, signals intelligence and more that we could see from this.

The tech is so new that, as I’ve described, it’s scarcely out of the lab. Where will it go? Well, if you had asked that question about, say, silicon chips, back in the 1960s or 1970s, could you have envisioned what is happening today? This idea can go anywhere, and I suspect that means it will go far.

original post by maing

http://agoracom.com/ir/POETTechnologies/forums/discussion/topics/578527-great-article-on-poet-from-penny-sleuth

direct link to an article

http://pennysleuth.com/getting-rich-from-military-technology-part-ii/

cheers