November 4, 2005

Device Created at Stanford Could Lift the Speed and Lower the Price of Optical Networking

By VINCENT KIERNAN

In a finding that could lead to more-powerful optical computer networks, researchers from Stanford University have shown that the element germanium can be used to fashion a shutterlike device to control a laser beam.

Such "optoelectronic" devices are used in optical networking, in which computer data are transmitted through fiber-optic lines as bursts of laser light.

At present, optoelectronic devices are manufactured out of exotic materials such as gallium arsenide, which are

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