Room-temperature laser is closer

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated the room-temperature operation of a heterojunction bipolar transistor laser, moving it a major step closer to commercialisation.

"We have shown that the transistor laser, even in its early state of development, is capable of room-temperature operation at a speed of 3 GHz," said Nick Holonyak Jr, professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Illinois.

"We expect the device will operate at much higher speeds when it is more fully developed, as well as play an important role in electronic-photonic integrated circuits."

Room-temperature transistor lasers could facilitate faster signal processing, large capacity seamless communications, and higher performance electrical and optical integrated circuits.

After the demonstration of the first semiconductor laser (as well as the first practical light-emitting diode) in 1962, "it took the effort of many people eight years to get the diode laser to operate at room temperature," Holonyak said.

"Then it took an additional two years to make it reliable. But the big payoff has only now just begun, after more than 40 years of additional work."

By comparison, it has taken the Illinois researchers less than a year to move the transistor laser from cold operation to room-temperature operation.