Nanoscale lasers grown directly on silicon chips

New Scientist : The elusive goal of integrating lasers and electronics has come a big step closer with the first growth of nanoscale lasers directly on silicon. Silicon itself is a poor laser material. The tiny lasers are made instead from indium-gallium-arsenide, which is usually hard to grow directly on silicon. In a paper published in Nature Photonics, Connie Chang-Hasnain of the University of California, Berkeley, and her colleagues describe a novel growth scheme that overcomes the integration roadblock.