If I was designing one of these things my goal would not be to replace present day computers - which at this point is nearly impossible given the millions of man hours spent optimizing them - but to carve a niche where you outperform them in specific tasks. I have the vague impression that should be possible.
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Plasmonics may solve this problem. The interaction of light at an interface can lead to what essentially amounts to photon confinement. This allows for what's called near field optics which overcomes the limitations of wavelength and unlocks nanometer scale optoelectronics. For examples, see the solar sail for the "starshot" project.
That's why most optical computers lean into quantum computing.
Exponentially more powerful.
But unfortunately, for small N, like the N = 2 bits here, the additional complexity of pure optical + quantum computing just doesn’t pay off!
Right, Modern computers don't know what their purpose is, that makes it such a mind boggling challenge. Nothing is ever good enough. If you define the purpose it can be better and much cheaper.