Researchers Create World's Smallest Semiconductor Laser

[Guest]

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have come closer to a all-optics chip.

Researchers Create World's Smallest Semiconductor Laser : Read more

 

[Chainzsaw]

With this small laser - does this mean optical media can be further enhanced by more data being able to fit in the same space?

This seems like it would be great for future processors/RAM for communications - since light does not have limitations copper has.

 

[phatboe]

[citation][nom]Chainzsaw[/nom]With this small laser - does this mean optical media can be further enhanced by more data being able to fit in the same space?[/citation]
Doubtful since it still emits green light.

 

[ses27]

So you can put this on the head of a baby shark

 

[jkflipflop98]

[citation][nom]Chainzsaw[/nom]With this small laser - does this mean optical media can be further enhanced by more data being able to fit in the same space?This seems like it would be great for future processors/RAM for communications - since light does not have limitations copper has.[/citation]

Nope, what this means is that Thunderbolt controller chips are about to get really cheap. This can theoretically be used to replace the waveguide circuitry on motherboards and the copper interconnect layers in a processor. . . but that also means one needs to built a optical transmission/reception device at either end hence completely nullifying the whole purpose of simplifying the circuit with a laser in the first place.

 

[onichikun]

Also it isnt that easy to grow GaN on silicon substrates, since it puts quite a bit of stress on the silicon lattice its grown on. It would be nice to have optical transmission on chip, but this technology is going to be hard to integrate into todays fab processes.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]Chainzsaw[/nom]This seems like it would be great for future processors/RAM for communications - since light does not have limitations copper has.[/citation]

Although optics would most likely have superior latency and bandwidth, data deteriorate faster over very short distances (like less than a few centimeters) on optics than copper.

 

[11796pcs]

The laser was built using a 30 nm gallium nitride nanorod that is partially filled with indium gallium nitride.

Sorry Tom's, you lost me there.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

IIRC copper conducts electrical signals at around 2/3rds the speed of light in a vacuum - so that's 2 x 10^8 meters per second as opposed to 3 x 10^8 m/s - still pretty fast in my book 😛.

From what I've read, the big problem in optical processing is switching or steering the light signals into the correct logic (directional) path without having to transduce it to an electrical signal, gating it to the appropriate output, and then transducing it back to an optical signal. If that can be done cheaply and efficiently, then we're talking processing speeds in the terahertz range as opposed to a few GHz as with electrical CPUs or GPUs. Basically optical switching uses input optical signals to gate or switch optical output signals, requiring much less power and having switching times orders of magnitude less than their CMOS logic gate counterparts.

However this seems to be yet another 'promising' technology always stuck in the lab, sorta like those infamous carbon nanotube enhanced batteries that DailyTech and THG used to go on and on about for years. Still waiting on that 48-hour battery that seemed to be "right around the corner" back in 2008, BTW... 😛

 

[eddieroolz]

The amount of science in this single post is astonishing.