Intel researchers build laser on chip
By UsaydWorking with the basic material of computer chips, Intel Corp. researchers have constructed an all-silicon laser that could lead to computers one day harnessing light waves rather than electrical currents to shuttle data swiftly.
Today, lasers that power fast optical networks require exotic — and expensive — materials and are mainly used in vast communications networks. With everyday silicon, the capacity and efficiency of light waves could be used cheaply in much smaller environments.
As a result, the movement of data within computers would keep up with the ever-increasing speed of microprocessors, breaking through an increasingly problematic bottleneck that exists for users of complex programs, such as video editors, large businesses and governments.
Silicon lasers also could be mass produced, using the same equipment on which standard chips are made.
But silicon, the semiconductor that makes up computer memory and logic chips, has only recently been considered for use in photonics, or light-based technology — and it promises to revolutionize that field as it did electronics…