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First Room-Temperature Germanium Laser Completed
eldavojohn writes "MIT researchers have built and demonstrated the first room-temperature germanium laser that can produce light at wavelengths suited for communication. This achievement has two parts: '[U]nlike the materials typically used in lasers, germanium is easy to incorporate into existing processes for manufacturing silicon chips. So the result could prove an important step toward computers that move data — and maybe even perform calculations — using light instead of electricity. But more fundamentally, the researchers have shown that, contrary to prior belief, a class of materials called indirect-band-gap semiconductors can yield practical lasers.' While these are only the initial steps in what may become optical computing devices, the article paints it as very promising. The painful details will be published in the journal Optics Letters."
Why is this better than existing solid-state lasers?
-jcr
Already being integrated with silicon for circuits. And like the summary says, manufacturing is much easier.
Shouldn't Berlin University be the one using the Germanium?
MIT should have made their laser out of Americium.
And it sucks to be Cambridge. There is no such thing as Englandium.
What? No, I don't have anything sensible to say about this story. And anyway, at first I thought it said geranium, and my comment was going to be even stupider than this one.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Stronger, faster, more efficient.
Downside is it has a tendency to encroach on polandium lasers...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
lasers compatible with silicon processing technology are a good thing. SiGe is a proven IC material set with a sort-of robust processing knowledgebase. Incorporating Germanium optics into silicon designs supposedly will usher in a new era of wacky computing with on-chip optical logic elements, interconnects, etc. Some people think quantum computing would be easier if you were working in the optical instead of electrical domain. Blah blah. People made silicon lase not too long ago, but efficiency was horrible. Germanium can make for a much better optics, and now you can put in together.
it would be cool. it would have no resistance. and it would be faster
so no heat sink problems, it would run at much lower power levels, and optical computing would make today's fastest electronic computers look like a texas instruments calculator from the 1970s
additionally, since we're running fibre everywhere today, there's no real interface/ translation between the photon on the line and the photon going into the processor, ideally. the promise is that the internet would become this woven intelligent network, soaring into the stratosphere in terms of speed, interconnectivity, intelligent routing, etc. it would really open up some amazing barely imaginable implications and avenues in terms of what the internet could possibly do. or maybe it would just mean 10^100 spams per picosecond ;-P
assuming of course they tackle the bazillion fabrication issues facing the cheap, easy production of photonic computers. we're a long way away, but i hope to see a rudimentary setup before i kick the bucket
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Only the Vichi isotope is conducive to interactions with germanium, the rest react violently.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."