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Silicon lighting to lead to faster chips
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BRITISH scientists have made an efficient light-emitting diode (LED) from silicon which would lead to faster and smaller microchips.
Normal silicon does not glow efficiently, but Kevin Homewood of the University of Surrey and colleagues made it possible by creating extra silicon atoms to provide areas that can emit light in the material, it was reported in the science journal Nature.
The prototype silicon-based LED they made is already close to being as efficient in converting electricity to light as conventional LEDs made from other semiconducting materials.
It works fine under room-temperature, making it ideal for use in personal computers.
Voice and Internet traffic is carried by photons of light that stream through optical fibres. But before the information can be used, it must be converted into electronic signals.
Current light-emitting devices cannot be built into silicon circuits, creating a bottleneck to further miniaturization. If silicon could use light rather than electrons to carry signals across chips, it would enable more information to be carried on smaller chips.(Xinhua)
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