Physicists at The University of Texas in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a technology for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine, according to a report published in the journal 'Science'.
According to the scientists, miniaturisation of semiconductor lasers is key for the development of faster, smaller and lower energy photon-based technologies, such as ultrafast computer chips; highly sensitive biosensors for detecting, treating and studying diseases and next-generation communication technologies.
Such photonic devices could use nano-lasers to generate optical signals and transmit information and have the potential to replace electronic circuits.
"We have developed a nano-laser device that operates well below the 3-D diffraction limit," said Chih-Kang "Ken" Shih, professor of physics at The University of Texas at Austin.
"We believe our research could have a large impact on nano-scale technologies." Said Shih.
The nanolaser is too small to be visible to the naked eye and when fired, it emits a green light.
The device is constructed of a gallium nitride nanorod that is partially filled with indium gallium nitride. Both alloys are semiconductors used commonly in LEDs.
It's a material that the Shih lab has been perfecting for more than 15 years. The "atomic smoothness" is key to building photonic devices that don't scatter and lose plasmons, which are waves of electrons that can be used to move large amounts of data.
"Atomically smooth plasmonic structures are highly desirable building blocks for applications with low loss of data," said Shih.
Lasers such as this could provide for the development of chips where all processes are contained on the chip, so-called "on-chip" communication systems. This would prevent heat gains and information loss typically associated with electronic devices that pass data between multiple chips.
