January 7, 2005, Santa Clara, CA--Intel researchers have reported an experimental demonstration of Raman lasing in a compact, all-silicon waveguide cavity on a single silicon chip. The findings are to be published in an upcoming 2005 issue of Nature magazine.
The breakthrough builds on previous research at the University of California at Los Angeles (see Laser Focus World newsbreaks, December 2004, p. 9) where scientists reported the first incidence of an all-silicon Raman laser, although it required an external optical fiber ring cavity to produce lasing.
Development of all-silicon devices have long been viewed as essential to the development of optical computers that process information using light instead of electrons. All-silicon devices also promise lower manufacturing costs by using standard photolithography fabrication techniques and other bulk processes.
