You guys are probably aware that lasers have the cool ability to send large amounts of data over long distances (we're talking about info exchange between cities and across oceans) because of fiber optic cables.

Well, some researchers at Intel and at the University of California are also aware of that too, and decided to create silicon-based chips that actually produce laser beams. You see, sending data through wires can sometimes take days, but if you replace the wires with laser light, your data can be transferred before you even have the chance to say, "wow."

Swell, eh? Apparently, laser-silicon chips are 100 times faster than most laser-based gadgets, and are known to be cheaper too. And how does once come up with these laser-silicon chip thingamajigs? Basically, you just sandwich your regular silicon chip between a layer of light-emitting indium phosphide and special channels that serve as light-wave guides. Easy,eh? Just like taking candy from a baby.

And it seems that there are a lot of people taking interest in this field, too. Reports say that Japanese scientists are looking into it but they're using a different chemical element in their research.

This breakthrough may lead to a new breed of leaner and meaner supercomputers with jaw-dropping-data-transfer speeds, so we're crossing our fingers that everyone in the community will give it a thumbs-up. Who knows? Maybe next time we'll get to see silicon-chips made from light saber material.