By Peter Weiss
Light-based microcircuits could process more information and do it more quickly than electronic ones, theorists predict. They also would run much cooler and free of electromagnetic interference. However, there’s no material suitable for chips using photons that’s equivalent to semiconductors using electrons.
By taking cues from a natural material—the opal—researchers in Canada and Spain have come up with a possible feedstock for light chips (SN: 8/7/99, p. 87). While cheap and easy to mass-produce, this new crystal refuses to pass or absorb light in the 1.5-micrometer wavelength range favored for fiber-optic communications.