According to reports, Ryan Behunin, an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, collaborated with physicists from Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin to discover an innovative approach to manipulating light in silicon.
As described in an article published in the top journal Science, the new laser is shown to amplify light in a silicon chip with sound waves. The team's research represents a major advancement in the field of silicon photonics.
For decades, the challenge of realizing the full potential of silicon photonics has plagued many scientists. Due to the inherent characteristics of this component, it is very difficult to generate a laser pointer in silicon, which is a key factor in silicon photonics. Through the above findings, the R&D team has taken a big step toward solving this problem.
Behunin said: "We have demonstrated a new laser pointer-Brillouin laser in silicon." The project greatly expands the way light operates and controls in silicon. The laser is named after the French physicist Léon Brillouin, and the photoacoustic scattering effect is also named after him. By designing a new dedicated waveguide, the team's Brillouin laser can use sound to amplify light.
Because of the unique properties of the laser pointer, its range of applications includes timing and new solutions for encoding and decoding information. In addition to illuminating, Brillouin lasers can produce pure sound waves. The emitted light can be used to power the "photonic circuit", and the resulting sound waves enable very sophisticated precision measurements, all of which can be implemented on a small chip.
Behunin pointed out: "Our work is still in its infancy. We can create a series of laser design applications from silicon, each with unique properties tailored for specific applications."