Optical Fiber With a Silicon Core 60
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to the Optical Society of America, U.S. researchers have been able to create a practical optical fiber with a silicon core. As they were able to use the same commercial methods that are used to develop all-glass fibers, this might pave the way for future silicon fibers as viable alternatives to glass fibers. The scientists note that this should help increase efficiency and decrease power consumption in computers and other systems that integrate photonic and electronic devices. Here is a good summary by the lead researcher: 'In the past, we've needed one structure to process light and another to carry it. With a silicon fiber, for the first time, we have the ability to greatly enhance the functionality in one fiber.'"
Re:how is glass different than silicon? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the underlined text in the summary is called a link. Click it and you will see what is called TFA. It actually explains some of the potential advantages of the silicon core.
I think his question was fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
I read the article and even did a quick google and did not gain any insight.
However, a Slashdotter replied to his question:
"glass is silicon dioxide. Silicon is pure Si."
And now I have learned something...woo-hoo!!!
Re:how is glass different than silicon? (Score:5, Informative)
glass is silicon dioxide. Silicon is pure Si.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:how is glass different than silicon? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Glass is typically an amorphous oxide SiOx. TFA says this is crystalline.
Re:how is glass different than silicon? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how is glass different than silicon? (Score:4, Informative)
Optical + Silicon + The Internet is for...? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Optical + Silicon + The Internet is for...? (Score:5, Funny)
Its slashdot, theres a boob joke everywhere.
Re:Optical + Silicon + The Internet is for...? (Score:5, Insightful)
You guys (Parent and Grandparent posters) are a couple of boobs.
Re: (Score:2)
This is slashdot. We are not so much interested in a silicon core as much as a caramel nougat core.
Just How I Like My Women (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
... with a silicon core.
Well, at least you should have no problem finding a woman with a cold metal heart. Well, not more so than the other kind anyway since the chance is the same.
Re:Just How I Like My Women (Score:4, Funny)
Good! Just what the doctor ordered! (Score:4, Funny)
More fiber!
Re: (Score:2)
with a chewy nugget inside!
How do they do it? (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, I've read TFA. Now all I want to know is: how the hell do they make many many kilometres of crystalline silicon? Amorphous Si, OK, I can understand, but getting it crystalline is amazing. Or do they mean polycrystalline? Wouldn't that ruin the optical properties?
Re:How do they do it? (Score:4, Informative)
The silicon crystals they grow for wafers are huge these days. Presuming that they draw it out the same way that they do traditional fiber optic cable, they'll get plenty of length.
A BIG optical fiber is 100 microns across (0.1 mm). A big wafer is 300mm. So they stretch down over 3000 times in size, which should give you 9 MILLION times the original length, unless my math fails me. I don't know how long the crystal is that they grow these days for wafers, but one only half a meter long should go a long way at that diameter...
Re:How do they do it? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I meant I wasn't sure how long the single crystal that they slice the wafers from is. They can slice them to about 18 mils - if they want the wafers thinner they have to do an additional step, backgrinding or such. They can get 'em all the way down to 1 mil these days, though the smallest I've seen in production is about 3 times that. Quite flexible at that thickness. At the show, they guy will wrap the wafer around on itself to demonstrate flexibility.
Am I off-topic yet? :)
Re: (Score:1)
From the Paper, as referenced in the article, on OpticsExpress [opticsinfobase.org]:
2.1 Fiber fabrication
Three tubes of optical quality silica were sleeved concentrically to yield an overall cladding
with outer diameter about 50 mm and inner diameter of 3.5 mm. A section of bulk silica rod
was joined to one end of this tube assembly to act as a seal for the silicon core, which would
be molten during the draw. This approach to layering of concentric tubes was utilized since a
single glass tube of those dimensions was not commercial
Re: (Score:2)
So it looks like they start with a silicon crystal in the middle of glass with a silicon crystal end cap. Then they melt the Si in the glass, leaving the endcap intact and do the draw. I suppose at that point they cool the fiber, which would cause a crystal to propagate from the seed (endcap).
Or did I read that wrong?
Re:How do they do it? (Score:4, Insightful)
I was wondering the same thing. Silicon is not a glass, and cannot be stretched like a glass can.
Glasses have very fuzzy 'melting points'. In other words, they just get gooey rather than becoming a liquid. Silicon on the other hand, has a well defined melting point, and is not gooey.
Now, silicon crystals ARE grown inside of SiO2 lined graphite crucibles. So, I imagine that they might be able to melt the silicon inside of a Si02 layer, and stretch both. Then, when it cools, the silicon will form microcrystals. So, it wouldn't be crystalline, but it would still be transparent to photons with energy below 1.1 eV (wavelength greater than 1.1 um).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hasn't this "glass is a liquid" bullshit been debunked countless times?
Re: (Score:2)
No, as far as I know it hasn't. It doesn't have a clear melting point, as someone else mentioned already, and you can't crystallize glass whatever you do.
Re: (Score:1)
on both counts, you couldn't be more wrong
Debunking the "glass is a liquid" myth (Score:2)
Yes, it has.
Here are some links:
http://sciencegeekgirl.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/liquid-glass/ [wordpress.com]
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/5_30_98/fob3.htm [sciencenews.org]
http://www.thefoa.org/tech/glass.htm [thefoa.org]
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html [unl.edu]
This urban legend has been thoroughly debunked. An amorphous solid (which is what glass is) is still a solid.
As for the other posters in this thread and in parallel branches who
ohnoitsroland!! (Score:1, Informative)
I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts.
Roland Piquepaille has an online journal. . . . It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he
Re: (Score:2)
As of today, it is clear that ten articles were accepted in October, six in November, and four in December (so far). See http://slashdot.org/~rpiquepa [slashdot.org] for yourself.
Umm... What? I count 6 in October and none yet for next month or the month after. Did someone forget to proof-read his copy-pasta?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Why do you care so much that he makes a little bit of money for his effort? The stories he posts are usually on topic, interesting, and somewhat obscure. It's a shame the commentary is always clouded by the whiners. The people that continue to bitch about this really should just get over it already.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He copies-and-pastes the meat of his journal entries from professional and academic journals and news magazines
Some mods call this "karma whoring", but this is slashdot, and who wants to navigate through 10 pages just to RTFA when half of the participants don't even read the fuckin' articles? :)
Re: (Score:2)
Thats okay, the other half don't understand it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:ohnoitsroland!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how unfair it is that Roland Piquepaille should receive compensation for what effectively is online research. It's at least as fair as Slashdot, a for-profit company, getting loads of free online research from article submitters.
How do you lose out by his $80 an article?
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
it's perfectly fair. What isn't fair is the number of articles submitted vs accepted ratio, for most slashdotters this is simply 0, roland p. seems to have an inside line that pretty much guarantees acceptance of his articles, no matter how flimsy. To see this in action have a look at the firehose and how much content there is available of better quality and more relevance (and dare I say more original) than rolands drivel, and yet, his gets selected every time.
Re: (Score:1)
I looked at that blogads.com site and found it extremely hard to navigate, very raw etc... turns out that adblock+ disables the CSS on the site because it containst "ads" in it :-p
just my 2c
no mention of durability?? (Score:2)
will this new silicon fiber be more durable and less fragile than glass-fiber?
if not, what's the point?
Linear Computing? (Score:2)
Cheaper net for the aussies (Score:3, Insightful)
Hitchhiker (Score:2)
Does this mean the Earth is a giant computer powered by lightning? :)
The real advantage... (Score:2)
big leap to computing (Score:1)
from the OpticsExpress paper:
"measured propagation losses were 4.3 dB/m at 2.936 μm"
100x more than regular fiber, at wavelengths we don't use for communications... I'm not sure if I see how this is useful.
I suppose it's cool to have a Process to make Si-core fibers, but it's not like computer chips need 2 km of fibers inside, and it's clearly not useful for C-band optical communication,
Seems like it's just a buzzword due to "Silicon" being placed nearby "photonics".
*maybe* you can
Re: (Score:1)
from the OpticsExpress paper:
"measured propagation losses were 4.3 dB/m at 2.936 μm"
100x more than regular fiber, at wavelengths we don't use for communications... I'm not sure if I see how this is useful.
Actually, it's worse. You failed to note that these guys measure in dB/m, whereas typical fiber losses are in dB/km...