First Silicon Laser

An anonymous reader writes "Since the creation of the first working laser, scientists have fashioned them from substances ranging from neon to sapphire. Silicon was not considered a candidate, because its structure wouldn't allow for the proper line-up of electrons needed to get this semiconductor to emit light. That has now changed thanks to three researchers at Brown University who have created the first directly pumped silicon laser by drilling billions of holes in a small bit of silicon using a nanoscale template."

Comments

Which one is first?

[TechyImmigrant]

Another first silicon laser? So who was really first?

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http://oemagazine.com/newscast/2004/102604_newscas t01.html

Los Angeles, CA | 26 October 2004 -- Researchers at UCLA have demonstrated the first silicon laser, which could lead to more effective biochemical detection, secure communications, and defense against heat-seeking missiles.

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http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/sp/

First Continuous Silicon Laser

In a paper published February 17, 2005 by the prestigious scientific journal Nature, Intel researchers disclosed the development of the first continuous wave all-silicon laser using a physical property called the Raman Effect. They built the experimental device using Intel's existing standard CMOS high-volume manufacturing processes. This is the third silicon photonics paper Intel has published in Nature since 2004, beginning with the modulator breakthrough (see the Learn More section).

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http://www.photonics.com/readart.asp?url=readartic le&artid=325&bhsh=1050&bhsw=1680&bhqs=1

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Nov. 21 -- Silicon has made its way into everything from computers to cameras. But a silicon laser? Physically impossible -- until now. A Brown University research team led by Jimmy Xu has engineered the first directly pumped silicon laser by changing the structure of the silicon crystal through a novel nanoscale technique.

Intel already did this

[warrior]

And they did it using ordinary semiconductor manufacturing methods. It was in spectrum a couple months ago, you can find it here: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/1915 They're planning it for use in single-chip optical networking solutions.

Porous Silicon

[karvind]

Is this too much different from photoluminesence from porous silicon ? That was shown in 90s and yes it wasn't coherent.

nanopourous silicon

[platinumflame]

I'm not 100% on this, but I do believe this stuff has been out for a while. In the lab I worked in last summer, we experimented with trying to grow gallium arsenide nano wires on a silicon nanoporous sub strait. This stuff costs us about $100 US for a sliver the size of a nickel. The idea was that we hoped we could get the nano wires to grow strait up and down much more easy than conventional techniques. The experiment failed because the silicon substrait could not be cleaved easily and the temperatures needed to grow the wires was too far too high for the substrait (~950 C), even though the manufacturer claimed it would hold its form past that mark.

Highlights

[TubeSteak]

Right now, it works at 200 C below zero.

and

The new silicon was tested repeatedly over the course of a year to ensure it met the classical criteria of a laser, such as threshold behavior, optical gain, spectral line-width narrowing and self-collimated and focused light emission.

This is pretty cool stuff & its not something that they just figured out how to do.

/I'd really like to know how they plan to go from -200C to room temperature.

Si Laser?

[SHUT_TEH_FACE]

This is particularly interesting to me. Not twenty minutes ago, my professor in Laser Theory spent a few minutes describing why Si lasers would never work, and we'd be rich to figure out how to get one to work.