Breakthrough, publishedBy INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 16 February 2005, 17:59CHIP FIRM Intel said it has perfected a technique to create single chip silicon laser devices. According to Mario Paniccia, head of the firm's photonics division, the device will use the natural atomic vibrations in silicon to amplify light. This is the Raman Effect, which has been known about for many years.The effect was discovered by Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman in 1928, and he won the Nobel prize in 1930 for this discover, with the first laser using his discovery built in 1962.Paniccia claimed this effect is over 10,000 times stronger in silicon than in glass fibre.What's also interesting is that once Intel begins to ramp up laser silicon, it doesn't need to use brand new fabs - and the cost will be much lower than photonic devices using a combination of complex packaging, expensive processing, and rare materials.Intel showed a slide demonstrating the Raman Effect in different materials.Light from a pump beam exchanges energy with vibrating atoms, causing energy to be transferred to the Raman wavelength. By adding mirrors, the light is reflected back and forth until it gives a new beam of laser light at the Raman wavelength.Intel said it has overcome the two photon absorption effect, which prevented the signal from being increased. The first continuous silicon laser chip its made includes eight lasers, and the chips will applications as small optical amplifiers and loss less devices, for example networks. There are potentially many more applications in computing, medicine and other spheres, Paniccia said. Scientific details of the breakthrough are to be published in the current edition of Nature. µ
