An international team of scientists constructs the first
germanium-tin semiconductor laser for silicon chips (Nature Photonics, DOI:
10.1038/NPHOTON.2014.321)
Scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Paul
Scherrer Institute in Switzerland in cooperation with international partners
have presented the first semiconductor consisting solely of elements of main
group IV. As a consequence, the germanium-tin (GeSn) laser can be applied
directly onto a silicon chip and thus creates a new basis for transmitting data
on computer chips via light: this transfer is faster than is possible with
copper wires and requires only a fraction of the energy. The results have been
published in the journal Nature Photonics.