MIT Researchers Demonstrate First Room Temperature Germanium Laser
Source/Type: Reported News

Author: CompoundSemi News Staff

February 8, 2010... MIT’s Electronic Materials Research Group developed what they say is the first room temperature germanium laser. Another claimed first of the researchers is that the laser is the first germanium laser to produce light in wavelengths that are useful to optical communications.

One of the key benefits of a laser made out of germanium is that unlike other semiconductor materials used to make high performance lasers it is actually an indirect-band gap material. However, the researchers devised a way in which it can be "band-engineered to behave like a direct band gap material by using tensile strain and n-type doping to compensate the energy difference between the direct and indirect conduction valleys." The researchers suspect that other indirect-band gap materials may be utilized in the same way. The researchers detailed their findings in Optics Letters. (Ref: Optics Letters Database).

To increase computational capacity, higher bandwidth connections are necessary. Wide-band gap compound semiconductor-based lasers allow more data to be transported at lower power than silicon. However integrating such lasers with electrical silicon components, which form the basis of most computer chips, is difficult and costly. The researchers believe that the newly devised germanium laser could integrate optical and electrical components more easily on silicon. Such lasers could make the dream of optical computing closer to reality.

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