‘Laser Chips’ Could Replace Wires in Your PC

Researchers from Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara have found a way to build low-cost laser chips that could eventually shuttle data around PCs at much higher speeds than today’s copper wire interconnects. The researchers combined the properties of a compound semiconductor material called indium phosphide, which emits light constantly, and silicon, which can be used to amplify and direct that light. They sandwiched the materials together to create a single device that can be manufactured using standard chip-making techniques