Intel makes hybrid silicon laser

THE RESEARCH and Development wing of Intel said that it, in conjunction with the University of California at Santa Barbara, has made the world's first hybrid silicon laser.

This, explained Intel breaks one of the last barriers to make high bandwidth silicon photonics devices cheaply.

The boffins and the boffinettes combined Indium Phosphide and element Silicon into one chip. When you bung voltage into the device, light is generated and enters the silicon waveguide to make a continuous laser beam.

But Intel Photonic lab director Mario Paniccia cautioned that the technology is still "far from being a commercial product". He said that if things go well, however, it will bring terabit optical data piped inside futuristic computers.

Santa Barbara boffin John Bowers described it as a new laser structure which can be used at the wafer, partial wafer or die level. In some ways, Professor Bowers appears more optimistic than Intel about the immanence of such a technology. µ