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Optics move into silicon
February 13, 2007

Fiber-optics have always been great ot moving large amounts of data, but not without limitations. For one thing, light loses power when travelling over long fibers. In addition, it's been impractical to integrate optics into silicon. That's about to change because researchers from MIT have developed a technique to reduce the problem of random polarization of light by rotating it on silicon. The technique splits the light from optical fibers into horizontal and vertical beams. Then the silicon rotates one of the beams so that both are in the same plane. That minimizes losses and lets photons remain as photons in silicon, they need not be converted to electrical signals.

When this technique comes into its use, it could dramatically increase data rates and it could reduce the losses in fiber-optic cables caused by polarization, which now can be corrected in optical networks but only at great expense. Details of the technique apprear in the January issue of Nature Photonics where you can read the research report or read a summary of the report.

Posted by Martin Rowe on February 13, 2007 | Comments (0)