How to Compute With Electron Waves

Much has been made of the excessive power demands of AI, but solutions are sparse. This has led engineers to consider completely new paradigms in computing: optical, thermodynamic, reversible—the list goes on. Many of these approaches require a change in the materials used for computation, which would demand an overhaul in the CMOS fabrication techniques used today.Over the past decade, Hector De Los Santos has been working on yet another new approach. The technique would require the same exact materials used in CMOS, preserving the costly equipment, yet still allow computations to be performed in a radically different way. Instead of the motion of individual electrons—current—computations can be done with the collective, wave-like propagations in a sea of electrons, known as plasmons.De Los Santos first proposed the idea of computing with plasmons back in 2010. More recently, in 2024, De Los Santos and collaborators from University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, and