While searching for new news to post new news post (erks!?), I found that one which might be of interest to you: Intel Claims Breakthrough In High-Speed Computing

Quote: What researchers at Intel's Photonics Technology Lab have done is build a key component needed for a silicon-based photonic integrated circuit, Ansheng Liu, principal engineer with Intel's corporate technology group, said in the lab's blog. That component is a silicon optical modulator that can encode data on an optical beam at 40 billion bits per second.

Have fun!

2^35 b/s? Evolutionary change. 32 of them would be necessary for 2^40 (Tb/s), it's unlikely this modulator would include a "Turbo codes" HW encoder/decoder.

Hopefully it would be a nice first step for optical computers, however 45 nm factories of Intel would say otherwise.