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Intel Announces Laser Breakthrough

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the speed-of-light dept.

AdmiralWeirdbeard writes "Intel has just announced a breakthrough in laser technology allowing a continuous laser wave on a silicon chip. Apparently they devised a method to sap the interfering field of electrons previously generated in silicon by the lasers. Intel says that hardware exploiting the advance might begin appearing at the end of the decade."

9 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Correct Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?

    No, those units look right. If you really read the first article, then you would have seen the picture of the die.

  2. Expensive? by BeerCat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA: The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has created a chip containing eight continuous Raman lasers by using fairly standard silicon processes rather than the somewhat expensive materials and processes required for making lasers today.

    OK, so I'm probably missing some major point here, but, define "expensive" for making lasers, given that there is a laser in every cheap £20 CD player, cheap £30 DVD player, cheap £5 laser pointer... Can't be that expensive, surely?

    --
    "She's furniture with a pulse"
    1. Re:Expensive? by thpr · · Score: 5, Informative
      define "expensive" for making lasers

      Keep in mind that the lasers you are working with are not very precise (the CD player, DVD player), or even only have to be coherent (the laser pointer) and not pulsing. Even with the encoding, the DVD is only transmitting a few Mb/s of information as it encounters pits and lands on a CD/DVD. (4.7GB/2 hours = ~6Mb/s)

      The long-haul optical systems and optical switches are transmitting over multi-kilometer fiber optic cable that is transmitting at Gb/s rates. That requires a MUCH better laser, in terms of power, coherency and switching speed. I actually don't know what the lasers cost, but some of the receivers can be in the hundreds for a single receiver at the very high end. The optical systems themselves are rather expensive, being thousands of dollars for a single mid-range board that has a pair of optical receiver/transmitters (2 ports).

  3. Re:Correct Units? by k98sven · · Score: 5, Informative

    The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?

    Yes. The Nature article the guys published (20 Jan, vol 433, p292) on this says "4.8 cm".

    IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it, or maybe its not linear.

    Yes, of course they're going to develop this further. This is the first time they've achived continous-wave laser gain in silicon, obviously the next step is to increase it.
    (A smaller cavity requires larger gain)

    No it's not linear, the cavity is S-shaped.

  4. End of the Decade? by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 5, Funny
    Intel says that hardware exploiting the advance might begin appearing at the end of the decade.

    Which one?

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    taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
  5. What in the... by d474 · · Score: 5, Funny
    From TFA:
    1. Rong's chip produces laser light when it is 'pumped' with another laser.

    I'm sorry, but that is just Rong...
    --
    Authority questions you. Return the favor.
    1. Re:What in the... by Some_Llama · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Wait a minute, wait a minute...

      Rong's chip produces laser light when it is 'pumped' with another laser.

      So, two lights make a Rong?"

      No it means it will Lase you rong time...

  6. No... by maynard · · Score: 5, Funny
    "[..]the potential implications for breast implants!"

    ...that's Silicone, not Silicon. BIG difference. Not the lease of which is feel. Imagine your wife with a hard and lumpy P4 in there, instead of a Silicone Gel breast implant, and you'll get the idea. Oh wait, yeah... some weirdos around here would dig that. Nevermind! *ahem!*--M

  7. Re:Catch 22 by Anztac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, they mention in the news.com article that silicon is a poor producer of light, what it is good at though is amplifying it via the Ramen effect.

    A Raman laser, in some ways, is ideally suited for silicon. The Raman Effect, discovered in 1928 by Nobel laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, roughly works as follows: Light hits a substance, causing the atoms in the substance to vibrate. The collision causes some of the photons to gain or lose energy, resulting in a secondary light of a different wavelength. A Raman laser essentially involves taking this secondary light and then amplifying it (by reflecting it and pumping energy into the system) to emit a functional beam. Because of its crystalline structure, silicon atoms readily vibrate when hit with light. The Raman Effect, in fact, is 10,000 times stronger in silicon than standard glass, which should make it far easier to amplify.

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    ~Anztac