Scientists with Intel announced a new technology
they say could vastly help improve the way high-quality lasers and
optical devices are used in computers.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said its researchers
have found a way to create a continuous, high-quality laser beam using
the crystalline structure of silicon and combining it with a light
scattering technique called the Raman effect.
While still far from becoming a commercial product, Intel said the
ability to build a laser from standard silicon could lead to inexpensive
optical devices that move data inside and between computers.
In one
case, Intel said it could use the technology in tiny lasers, amplifiers
and optical interconnects to move terabytes of data around the computer
and across networks.
“Fundamentally, we have demonstrated for the first time that standard
silicon can be used to build devices that amplify light,” Mario
Paniccia, director of Intel’s Photonics Technology Lab and co-author of
the research paper, said. “The use of high-quality photonic devices has been
limited because they are expensive to manufacture, assemble and
package.”
Dentists could benefit from the lasers, too. For example, Intel said one
type of laser wavelength is useful for working on gums and another one
for excavating cavities in teeth.
Intel said its breakthrough came when researchers tried to
incorporate a semiconductor structure, technically called a PIN
(P-type, Intrinsic, N-type) device into the waveguide. When a
voltage is applied to the PIN, it acts like a vacuum and removes most of
the excess electrons from the light’s path. The PIN device combined with
the Raman effect produces a continuous laser beam, Intel said.
The new silicon laser technology is part of Intel’s Silicon Photonics
research as a way to explore ways of developing optical devices into
Intel’s product line. In 2004, the chipmaker developed its first
silicon-based optical modulator to encode data at 1GHz, an increase of
more than 50 times the previous research record of about 20MHz.
“We have a wide range of long-term research programs in place to find
new ways of applying our silicon expertise to make life better for
people,” said Kevin Kahn, Intel senior fellow and director of the communications
technology lab. “For example, we are developing wireless sensor networks
that could be used to spot equipment failures in factories and even on
ships at sea before they happen, or to improve health care services
for the elderly.”
The procedure was first reported in this week’s issue of the journal
Nature. Currently, these lasers cost tens of
thousands of dollars each, limiting their use. Intel is expected to release more details about its
research at next month’s Intel Developers Forum.
