TUE researchers squeeze light from silicon

For all the magnificent things silicon is capable of doing well, emitting light (or absorbing it, for that matter) is not one of them. Being an indirect bandgap semiconductor, excited electrons in silicon’s crystal lattice return to their ground state by releasing their energy as heat, not as light. By carefully manipulating the crystal structure, however, researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and colleagues from Germany managed to make silicon shine. Creating a silicon laser is now just a matter of time, the researchers think.

The technological implications of that prospect are profound. Having access to a built-in light source means silicon’s electronic properties can be expanded upon with optoelectronic functionality, most importantly optical communication. Though electrons likely won’t become obsolete any time soon, being able to shuffle bits within a chip or between chips using speedy and energy-efficient optical communication would be a game-changer.