PHILADELPHIA, March 16 (UPI) -- Scientists from Penn State and the University of Southampton say they have developed a way to combine optical fiber and silicon-germanium devices.
The team says it has made semiconductor devices, including a transistor, inside microstructured optical fibers. They say the resulting ability to generate and manipulate signals inside optical fibers could have applications in fields as diverse as medicine, computing and remote sensing devices.
Optical fiber has proved to be the ideal medium for transmitting signals based on light, while crystalline semiconductors are the best way to manipulate electrons. One of the greatest current technological challenges is exchanging information between optics and electronics rapidly and efficiently. The researchers say their newly developed technique may provide the tools to cross that divide.
The results of the research appear in the journal Science.
