Tunneling holds key to high-speed modulation of transistor and laser development

(University of Illinois College of Engineering) In 2004, electrical engineering pioneers Nick Holonyak Jr. and Milton Feng at the University of Illinois invented the transistor laser -- a three-port device that incorporated quantum-wells in the base and an optical cavity -- increasing its capacity to transmit data one hundred-fold. Two recent studies by the researchers are expected to significantly impact the fundamental modulation bandwidth of the transistor and the laser operation for energy-e