It has been known for 100 years that light is both a wave and a particle, yet our approach to measuring light spectrum is still rooted only in the wave nature of light. Spectrometers built in this way suffer from the compromise between spectral features and device sizes. Recently, a particle-based spectrum detection method, coupled with advanced algorithms, has emerged. These new spectrometers offer high spectral resolution, wide spectral range, as well as compact size. This review outlines the principles, implementation, characteristics, performance, and extension of both wave and particle-based spectral detection technologies.

Optical computing accelerators, with high parallelism, large bandwidth, and low transmission loss, have the potential to enhance electronic computing in both computational power and energy efficiency. Photonic acceleration plays a crucial role in supporting computationally intensive operations, such as dynamic-static matrix multiplication, significantly improving overall efficiency. Existing photonic architectures for dynamic-static matrix multiplication depend on complex coherent optical systems or costly nano-optics fabrication, limiting scalability. This study introduces a novel quantum dot fluorescence-based dynamic-static matrix multiplication photonic acceleration architecture that eliminates the need for coherent light sources or intricate fabrication. By leveraging simple, cost-effective quantum dot preparation and printing techniques, this architecture has significant potential for large-scale, high-performance, low-cost photonic accelerators. We detail the mathematical and physical mechanisms of the proposed architecture, experimentally validate the key physical processes, and demonstrate its application in template matching for image recognition, achieving 95% accuracy.

In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Bawendi, Brus, and Ekimov, three scientists who have made great contributions to the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots (QDs), heralding a new era for these nanomaterials. The inception of QDs dates back more than 40 years, during which the theory of QDs has been continuously refined, the manufacturing techniques have significantly flourished, and the applications have largely expanded. Recently, QDs have become important optical devices, playing key roles in numerous fields such as display, energy, and biomedical applications. To celebrate the outstanding achievements of QDs over the years, we dedicate this paper to QDs. In the information field, QDs have been extensively utilized to design devices related to domains like transmission and storage, achieving many breakthroughs in performance. This paper proposes a comprehensive set of methodologies and paradigms for designing information systems using QDs. The proposed approach embodies two characteristics of QDs: 1) QDs play a central role in every aspect of the system and possess the capability to construct an all-quantum-dot (All-QD) information system. 2) QDs possess tunability and wavelength flexibility, which can significantly enhance the information density. Finally, we construct a prototype model of an All-QD information system and validate its feasibility through simulation. We believe that with the continued development of quantum dot (QD) technology, the realization of an All-QD information system is on the horizon.