Engineers grow nanolasers on silicon

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[citation][nom]jgalecio[/nom]I was thinking self powered nano lasers for nanoscopic surgery and even viral destruction![/citation]
Interesting...
Although I think the goal of all this is to be able to allow a CPU to transmit data from one part of the CPU to another part using this technology which would work similar to fiber optics. I believe the ultimate goal would be to have the whole motherboard, CPU and RAM comunicating using connections that are similar to fiber optics to allow an unbelievable amount of bandwidth. But I could be completely wrong about all of that... 😛
 
making the cpu and mobo fiber optic wouldn't serve too much purpose. loss of data is the biggest reason for using fibre optic, specifically over distances (eliminating resistance in the transmitting medium)
 
[citation][nom]Grizely1[/nom]making the cpu and mobo fiber optic wouldn't serve too much purpose. loss of data is the biggest reason for using fibre optic, specifically over distances (eliminating resistance in the transmitting medium)[/citation]

Uhhh, physics says otherwise man. Light is much faster than the propagation of a magnetic field in an electrical circuit which is much faster than electron flow. So yes, using light would yield a significantly faster CPU and far better bandwidth all around.

If silicon was as fast as light, it would have to be superconducting.

Are you saying that your CPU has superconducting material?!?
 
[citation][nom]bayouboy[/nom]Uhhh, physics says otherwise man. Light is much faster than the propagation of a magnetic field in an electrical circuit which is much faster than electron flow. So yes, using light would yield a significantly faster CPU and far better bandwidth all around.If silicon was as fast as light, it would have to be superconducting.Are you saying that your CPU has superconducting material?!?[/citation]
Dude, I think he's just saying that heat(and other things) in the CPU is our bottleneck, not the fact that the mobo uses copper.
 
[citation][nom]bayouboy[/nom]Uhhh, physics says otherwise man. Light is much faster than the propagation of a magnetic field in an electrical circuit which is much faster than electron flow.[/citation]
Actually, it is the propagation speed of an electromagnetic wave that affects the transferring of information.
Electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light in a vacuum, 95% the speed of light through unshielded copper, and 66% the speed of light through coaxial (shielded copper).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity
Drift velocity which is caused by an electric field is far to slow to be of use in data transmission.

While there is a potential speed up of up to 50% en route, the generation and detection of light has to be as fast as that of electricity in our current circuits to be of use for small runs.
This is especially true in electric/laser hybrid circuits where there is an additional latency in transforming electricity to light and vice versa.
Longer runs stand to gain more because more time is spent en route.
I would expect to see this technology on consumer motherboards before seeing it on consumer processors.
Of course, other factors, I.E. cost and ease of implementation, could dictate otherwise.
 
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