Defects work for laser
The photonic crystal was made by using an ion beam to drill a 2D hexagonal array of holes in a layer of indium gallium arsenide phosphide (InGaAsP). The regular spacing of the holes means that only ce...
DNA is a semiconductor
Fink and Schönenberger made their measurements by placing discrete amounts of DNA molecules in a water-based solution. A tiny droplet of the solution was then placed onto a gold-coated carbon foi...
Spinach to fuel optoelectronics
Although they are only 5nm long, each complex can generate 1 V in picoseconds, making them suitable for ultrafast switching, logic devices, and solar-power generation. The work was presented this week...
Quantum wells go metallic
Tai Chang Chiang and co-workers at Urbana confined electrons in thin films of silver ranging from 1 monolayer to around 100 monolayers thick. Just as photons resonate back and forth in an optical Fabr...
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
