Optical computing moves forward
The pairs are created by illuminating a semiconductor quantum well with a pulsed laser diode. A slight voltage difference on the semiconductor keeps the electron and the hole in separate levels inside...
Patents for microlasers
The world-wide patent rights have been licensed by the university to Nanovation Technologies in Florida. The company hopes to develop an optical circuit which would contain thousands of microcavity la...
Laser emits multi-wavelength light
Semiconductor lasers are usually monocromatic because the electrons stored in energy bands do not emit any photons unless they move out of the semiconductor’s conduction band. Federico Capasso a...
Electronics put it on plastic
The goal of all-polymer electronics has motivated an increasing number of research groups around the world for the past 20 years. These groups hope to provide plastics – which have the advantage...
Read article: Single-electron transistors
Single-electron transistors
Researchers are building new transistors that actively exploit the quantum properties of electrons
Atoms join in the race for lithography in the next century
The problem is that the features made by conventional optical lithography cannot be shrunk indefinitely. The laws of diffraction dictate that the only way to make feature sizes smaller is to shorten t...
Computer heal thyself
Researchers are investigating new ways to make computer chips in an effort to increase processing speed. It is likely that these new methods, such as chemical fabrication and assembly, will produce la...
Challenges in the nanoworld
Sometime early in the next century the miniaturization of conventional electronic devices will grind to a halt. The inexorable progress that has seen the number of transistors on a single silicon chip...
Nanotransistors at room temperature
The biggest challenge in making a single-molecule device is achieving electrical contact between individual molecules. Now new techniques that vaporize carbon to form nanotubes, and deposit material o...
