{"id":32157,"date":"2025-04-16T15:40:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T10:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32157"},"modified":"2025-05-27T17:43:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:13:51","slug":"miniature-laser-grown-on-silicon-chip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/miniature-laser-grown-on-silicon-chip\/","title":{"rendered":"Miniature Laser Grown on Silicon Chip"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Miniature Laser Grown on Silicon Chip Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Scientists from the US and Europe have successfully fabricated miniature lasers directly on silicon wafers, as published in a recent study in Nature.<\/p>\n<h2>About Miniature Laser Grown on Silicon Chip\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>This is a <strong>major advancement<\/strong> in the field of <strong>silicon photonics<\/strong>, as <strong>integrating a light source<\/strong> (laser) directly on the chip has long been a <strong>technological challenge<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Traditionally, lasers are <strong>manufactured separately<\/strong> and then attached to chips, which results in <strong>slower operation<\/strong>, <strong>higher costs<\/strong>, and <strong>manufacturing mismatches<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The new research resolves this issue by <strong>growing the laser directly<\/strong> on a <strong>silicon chip<\/strong> using a <strong>scalable process and compatible<\/strong> with standard <strong>CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) technology<\/strong>, which is the backbone of current semiconductor manufacturing.<\/li>\n<li>Initially, <strong>electrons<\/strong> carried data within silicon chips. However, <strong>modern advancements<\/strong> are replacing electrons with <strong>photons<\/strong>, leading to the rise of <strong>silicon photonics<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Photons<\/strong> carry information <strong>faster<\/strong>, with <strong>higher bandwidth<\/strong> and <strong>lower energy loss<\/strong> than electrons, making them ideal for <strong>next-generation computing<\/strong>, especially in <strong>data centres<\/strong>, <strong>sensors<\/strong>, and <strong>quantum computing<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Photonic Chip Components and Laser Physics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>photonic silicon chip<\/strong> consists of four key parts:\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>light source (laser)<\/strong>,<\/li>\n<li><strong>Waveguides<\/strong> to channel the photons,<\/li>\n<li><strong>Modulators<\/strong> to encode or decode data onto light signals, and<\/li>\n<li><strong>Photodetectors<\/strong> convert light into electrical signals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>laser<\/strong> functions on the principle of <strong>stimulated emission<\/strong>, where <strong>electrons drop to a lower energy level<\/strong>, releasing <strong>coherent photons<\/strong> to form a laser beam.<\/li>\n<li>However, <strong>silicon has an indirect bandgap<\/strong>, making it <strong>inefficient at light emission<\/strong>. Therefore, materials like <strong>gallium arsenide (GaAs)<\/strong> with a <strong>direct bandgap<\/strong> are preferred for laser construction.<\/li>\n<li>The setup was completed with a <strong>protective layer of indium gallium phosphide<\/strong> and <strong>electrical contacts<\/strong> to power the laser.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/miniature-laser-grown-on-silicon-chip-could-revolutionise-computing\/article69448304.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists from the US and Europe have successfully fabricated miniature lasers directly on silicon wafers, as published in a recent study in Nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":32158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-32157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-miniature-laser-grown-on-silicon-chip","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}