Carbon Sciences has been working on developing graphene-based devices for cloud computing. Now, the company announced that it has signed an agreement with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to fund the research and development of a new graphene-based optical modulator, a critical fiber optics component needed to enable ultrafast communication in data centers for Cloud computing.
In order for data to be transmitted through a fiber optic cable, light from a laser beam must be modulated. The amount of data that can be encoded and transmitted depends on the speed of the light beam modulation. Since changing the conductivity of graphene also changes its optical properties, light passing through it will also be changed accordingly to encode digital data. This, along with graphene's impressive features are to enable the development of an ultrafast, low cost, and low power, graphene-based optical modulator.