Semiconductor chips used in computers can run a hundred thousand times faster if electrons are exposed to ultra-short pulses of light, German physicists say in Nature Photonics.
“Ultra-short laser pulses open up new horizons for the movement of electrons inside solid semiconductors. The practical implementation of this idea will make it possible to create computers that will be hundreds of thousands of times faster than existing ones. And this is not an exaggeration, the RIA Novosti news agency quotes the leading author of the discovery, an employee of the University of Regensburg, Rupert Huber.
The technology, developed by scientists under the leadership of Huber, makes it possible to bring the performance of silicon chips to a fundamentally new level - ultrashort laser pulses, as scientists note, solve the problem of the impossibility of further reducing the size of individual transistors in processors.
Instead of reducing the process technology, German scientists propose to accelerate electrons using laser pulses.
The unique technology, as its creators are sure, will find practical application in the coming years.
Kolesnikov Andrey