Home > Press > A little impurity makes nanolasers shine: ANU media release
 |
| This is Tim Burgess with a silicon wafer on which nanostructures are grown. CREDIT: Stuart Hay, ANU |
Abstract:
Scientists at The Australian National University have improved the performance of tiny lasers by adding impurities, in a discovery which will be central to the development of low-cost biomedical sensors, quantum computing, and a faster internet.
A little impurity makes nanolasers shine: ANU media release
Posted on July 6th, 2016Researcher Tim Burgess added atoms of zinc to lasers one hundredth the diameter of a human hair and made of gallium arsenide - a material used extensively in smartphones and other electronic devices.
The impurities led to a 100 times improvement in the amount of light from the lasers.
"Normally you wouldn't even bother looking for light from nanocrystals of gallium arsenide - we were initially adding zinc simply to improve the electrical conductivity," said Mr Burgess, a PhD student in the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.
"It was only when I happened to check for light emission that I realised we were onto something."
Gallium arsenide is a common material used in smartphones, photovoltaic cells, lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), but is challenging to work with at the nanoscale as the material requires a surface coating before it will produce light.
Previous ANU studies have shown how to fabricate suitable coatings.
The new result complements these successes by increasing the amount of light generated inside the nanostructure, said research group leader Professor Chennupati Jagadish, from the ANU Research School of Physics Sciences.
"It is an exciting discovery and opens up opportunities to study other nanostructures with enhanced light emission efficiency so that we can shrink the size of the lasers further," he said.
Mr Burgess said that the addition of the impurity to gallium arsenide, a process called doping, improved not only the light emission.
"The doped gallium arsenide has a very short carrier lifetime of only a few picoseconds, which meant it would be well suited to use in high speed electronics components.
"The doping has really has given these nanolasers a performance edge."
The research is published in Nature Communications.
####
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Tim Burgess
tim.burgess@anu.edu.au
61-408-400-036
Copyright © Australian National University
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Bookmark:
| Related News Press |
News and information
Closing the gaps — MXene-coating filters can enhance performance and reusability February 28th, 2025
Rice researchers harness gravity to create low-cost device for rapid cell analysis February 28th, 2025
Wireless/telecommunications/RF/Antennas/Microwaves
HKUST researchers develop new integration technique for efficient coupling of III-V and silicon February 16th, 2024
Researchers demonstrate co-propagation of quantum and classical signals: Study shows that quantum encryption can be implemented in existing fiber networks January 20th, 2023
Possible Futures
Closing the gaps — MXene-coating filters can enhance performance and reusability February 28th, 2025
Rice researchers harness gravity to create low-cost device for rapid cell analysis February 28th, 2025
Chip Technology
New ocelot chip makes strides in quantum computing: Based on "cat qubits," the technology provides a new way to reduce quantum errors February 28th, 2025
Enhancing transverse thermoelectric conversion performance in magnetic materials with tilted structural design: A new approach to developing practical thermoelectric technologies December 13th, 2024
Bringing the power of tabletop precision lasers for quantum science to the chip scale December 13th, 2024
Quantum Computing
New ocelot chip makes strides in quantum computing: Based on "cat qubits," the technology provides a new way to reduce quantum errors February 28th, 2025
New quantum encoding methods slash circuit complexity in machine learning November 8th, 2024
Quantum researchers cause controlled ‘wobble’ in the nucleus of a single atom September 13th, 2024
Researchers observe “locked” electron pairs in a superconductor cuprate August 16th, 2024
Optical computing/Photonic computing
Groundbreaking research unveils unified theory for optical singularities in photonic microstructures December 13th, 2024
Groundbreaking precision in single-molecule optoelectronics August 16th, 2024
Nanoelectronics
Interdisciplinary: Rice team tackles the future of semiconductors Multiferroics could be the key to ultralow-energy computing October 6th, 2023
Key element for a scalable quantum computer: Physicists from Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University demonstrate electron transport on a quantum chip September 23rd, 2022
Reduced power consumption in semiconductor devices September 23rd, 2022
Atomic level deposition to extend Moore’s law and beyond July 15th, 2022
Discoveries
Closing the gaps — MXene-coating filters can enhance performance and reusability February 28th, 2025
Rice researchers harness gravity to create low-cost device for rapid cell analysis February 28th, 2025
Announcements
Closing the gaps — MXene-coating filters can enhance performance and reusability February 28th, 2025
Rice researchers harness gravity to create low-cost device for rapid cell analysis February 28th, 2025
Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters
Leading the charge to better batteries February 28th, 2025
Quantum interference in molecule-surface collisions February 28th, 2025
New ocelot chip makes strides in quantum computing: Based on "cat qubits," the technology provides a new way to reduce quantum errors February 28th, 2025
Photonics/Optics/Lasers
Bringing the power of tabletop precision lasers for quantum science to the chip scale December 13th, 2024
Researchers succeed in controlling quantum states in a new energy range December 13th, 2024
Groundbreaking research unveils unified theory for optical singularities in photonic microstructures December 13th, 2024
 |
||
 |
||
| The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
 |
||
|
|
||
| Premium Products | ||
 |
||
|
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
 |
||
|
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||
|
|
||