A Little Impurity Makes Nanolasers Shine
July 5, 2016 | Australian National UniversityEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) 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.
Researcher 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."
Suggested Items
Boeing Opens Research & Technology Center in Japan
04/23/2024 | BoeingBoeing today opened a Boeing Research & Technology (BR&T) Center in Japan that will focus on innovation to enable the commercial aviation industry meet its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Grow 8% in 2024
04/17/2024 | Gartner, Inc.Worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.06 trillion in 2024, an increase of 8% from 2023, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. This is an increase from the previous quarter’s forecast of 6.8% growth and puts worldwide IT spending on track to surpass $8 trillion well before the end of the decade.
Argonne, RIKEN Sign a Memorandum of Understanding in Support of AI for Science
04/16/2024 | BUSINESS WIRELeaders in high performance computing in the U.S. and Japan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing a cooperative relationship in support of artificial intelligence (AI) computing projects.
RAICo Fellowship to Widen Participation Within the Field of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
04/12/2024 | RAICoWOMEN and those early in their academia career who are passionate about robotics and artificial intelligence are encouraged to apply for a RAICo Fellowship.
Indium to Host Free Webinar on Lead-Free Solder Paste for Automotive Applications
04/09/2024 | Indium CorporationIndium Corporation’s Senior Research Metallurgist, Jie Geng, Ph.D., will conduct a webinar on low-voiding, high-reliability, lead-free solder paste for automotive applications.