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Electrical engineers at Stanford University have created nanoscale optical lines that use much less power than the laser connectors found in computers today. It could be the key to the next generation of electronic consumer products.
Earlier this month, Nature Communications published the findings of lead author and Ph.D. graduate Gary Shambat, under the direction of Stanford associate professor Jelena Vuckovic: “Here we demonstrate a directly modulated photonic crystal nanocavity light-emitting diode (LED) with 10?GHz modulation speed and less than 1?[femto-Joule] fJ per bit energy of operation, which is orders of magnitude lower than previous solutions.”
Typical laser transmitters now consume 100s of femto-Joules to several pico-Joules of energy per bit.
“Computers get really hot because half of the electricity is not being transmitted,” says Shambat, speaking to Forbes. But their findings could change that. “It’s now up to the big players, like Intel and IBM, which build the computers to see how cost competitive the LED sources are,” he says.
Shambat built upon the architecture that co-author and fellow Vuckovic teammate Bryan Ellis had created for a nanoscale laser, an innovation unveiled earlier this year. The laser however would only operate at super low temperatures.
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, David Miller, a well-known Stanford electrical engineering professor, said the LED findings are “highly significant and practical” for hyper speed computing: “Computers today are strangling on their own wires, and optical devices can enable an entire revolution,” he said.
Shambat has not yet heard from the blue-chip companies — although he has patents pending and hopes to hear from them soon.
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