Laser chips

Nothing is faster than light. So for decade engineers have tried to accelerate the pace of conventional electricity based compute chips by melding them with laser based signal processors, like those used to send Internet data blazing through fibre-optic cables. In September, researchers from a computer chip maker that powers 90% most of the world's computer and the university of California at Santa Barbara announced they had found a promising way to achieve that long-sought goal. The corporate and university teams set out to develop a hybrid design that could handle both electricity and light. They bonded a thin layer of indium phosphide, a compound that acts as a medium for the laser, onto siliconsheets by exposing both materials to a blast of hot, electrically charged oxygen atoms; the indium phosphide was spiked with aluminum gallim indium assenide to give it added speed. A microlayer of oxides then formed on the two surfaces, gluing them together. We can make thousands of lasers with just one bond as opposed to bonding each laser individually; Say John Bowers of UC Santa Barbara, co-inventor of the new device.