Researchers create new microchip design that abandons electricity for sound and light

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For the first time, a team of researchers successfully used lasers to generate sound waves on the surface of a microchip, opening the door for completely new microchip design considerations that abandon electricity.

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Lead author Dr Choon-Kong Lai (left), research lead Dr Moritz Merklein and Professor Ben Eggleton

In a new study published in the APL Photonics journal of the American Institute of Physics, a team of researchers details the process of generating sound waves on a microchip and the benefits of the new technology. According to the press release about the study, the team used a technique called stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), which is created through a feedback loop between photons (light) and phonons (sound). More specifically, as light moves around the chip or an optical fiber it creates sound vibrations.

Notably, researchers initially believed these sound vibrations to be an obstacle, but after further consideration, it was realized they could be coupled with light waves, which enhances the vibration. Moreover, the team discovered this vibration could be used as a new way to transport and process information.

Here's how it works. The team used special glass made from germanium, arsenic, and selenide, which is called GeAsSe. Using lasers to generate the light and the sound, the researchers were able to demonstrate how lasers can be used to create and detect high-frequency surface acoustic waves. The result was somewhat akin to an earthquake traveling across the surface of a microchip.

But instead of the powerful tremors the frequencies on the microchip were nearly a billion times higher than that produced by an earthquake. Being able to contain the sound wave to the microchip makes it a "perfect candidate for advanced sensing technologies," reads the University of Sydney press release

"The use of sound waves on the surface of a microchip has application in sensing, signal processing and advanced communications technology," said senior author and project lead Dr Moritz Merklein from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and School of Physics. "We can now start to think about new designs for chips that use light and sound instead of electricity."

The researchers believe the new technology has applications in 5G/6G and broadband networks, sensors, radar systems, defence systems, radio astronomy, satellite communication, signal processing, and advanced communications technologies.

"Typically, surface acoustic waves are 'excited' using electronics. Here we use photonics, or light energy, to produce the sound wave. This approach has multiple advantages, chief of which is that light does not produce the heat in the chip that electronic excitation causes," said study lead author Govert Neijts, a student from the University of Twente in the Netherlands who spent nine months at the University of Sydney labs

"The material is considered a soft glass. This means that unlike many materials, it operates as a guide for the high-frequency sound waves and lets them more freely interact with the light waves we put into the chip," said Dr. Merklein