WASHINGTON: In a ground-breaking feat, world's first synchronous computer that operates on water droplets has been developed by an Indian-American researcher from Stanford University.

Manu Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, and his students have built a unique computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets.

The work combines Prakash's expertise in manipulating droplet fluid dynamics with a fundamental element of computer science - an operating clock.

"In this work, we finally demonstrate a synchronous, universal droplet logic and control," Prakash said.

Because of its universal nature, the droplet computer can theoretically perform any operation that a conventional electronic computer can crunch, although at significantly slower rates.

The ability to precisely control droplets using fluidic computation could have a number of applications in high-end biology and chemistry and scalable digital manufacturing.

Computer clocks are responsible for everything - smartphones, airplanes, internet. Developing a clock for a fluid-based computer required some creative thinking.

Prakash realised that a rotating magnetic field that could act as clock to synchronise all the droplets might do the trick. The team built arrays of tiny iron bars on glass slides. They then laid a blank glass slide on top and sandwiched a layer of oil in between.

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