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Intel Speeds Up Silicon Photonics: Who Says Silicon Isn’t Good For Photonics?

Silicon is ubiquitous in the world of microelectronics, and yet, silicon photonics isn’t nearly as well-developed as other materials. There are a number of fundamental reasons for this, the main ones being the fact that silicon has an indirect bandgap, a relatively large bandgap, and is difficult to make electro-optic modulators out of because of its electric susceptibility.

It would be nice, though, to realize useful silicon-based photonic integrated circuits e.g. for optical-based means of communication and data transmission. This necessitates a post in itself, and has been duly added to the list of things that will be blogged about at some indefinite point in the future.

The point is, though, that a number of very smart people have been able to do interesting things with silicon in the context of photonics; for example, a lot of progress has been made recently in developing silicon lasers (see, for example, this or this). Well, here’s another breakthrough:

Researchers at Intel have announced the world’s fastest silicon modulator–an advance that could cut bandwidth costs and make computers run faster and cooler.

MIT’s Tech Review has an easy-to-read article on this; the paper itself is available here.

Scientists Turned Filmmakers

Interestingly (and perhaps, somewhat amusingly), the Pentagon is funding screenwriting classes for scientists-turned-budding-filmmakers, in an effort to enhance the US’s strength in science and technology. As many have previously pointed out, the US appears to be suffering from a dearth of young scientists and engineers – it turns out that rock stars and i-bankers have more sex appeal than scientists, mathematicians and engineers. (What?!) Taking its cues from (among other things) the popular TV-series CSI – which apparently helped boost careers in forensics – the Pentagon’s decided that “by writing and producing movies that have more scientific themes – and more authentic and appealing science protagonists… the US could encourage more young people to pursue careers in plasma physics, molecular biology, and other fields.“

“If I want to watch sports, I can turn on any one of four to 12 channels, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Alvin Chin, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia… “Imagine if science programming had that kind of presence.”

The article is here.