Breakthrough progress: World's smallest semiconductor

Great to find out about another breakthrough research from the University of California, Berkeley.

They have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser. This will be capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule. They not only successfully squeezed light into such a tight space, but found a novel way to keep that light energy from dissipating as it moved along, thereby achieving laser action. The achievement helps enable the development of such innovations as nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules; optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology; and optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power. Professor Xiang Zhang said: "This work shatters traditional notions of laser limits, and makes a major advance toward applications in the biomedical, communications and computing fields." Details here...

What possibilities and implications do you see for this progress?

Regards,
Mehmet

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