Drs. El-Ghazawi and Sorger receive patent for reconfigurable optical computer

The United States Patent Office has issued patent number US 10, 318, 680 B2, “The Reconfigurable Optical Computer,” to Dr. Tarek El-Ghazawi, Dr. Volker Sorger, and their team. The patent is the product of work performed under the National Science Foundation project “RAISE: The Reconfigurable Optical Computer (ROC)” for which Dr. El-Ghazawi is the principal investigator (PI) and Dr. Sorger is the co-PI. This invention introduces a new class of reconfigurable computing devices, namely a nano-photonic, analog, reconfigurable computer that is capable of computing out of first principles by solving those partial differential equations (PDEs) that are used for most simulations in science and engineering. The PDEs would be directly solved using a network of electric components that are implemented using innovative nano-photonic devices.