Laser diodes work on the same principle as the bigger gas lasers. They function as an optical oscillator by stimulating a chain reaction of photon emission inside a tiny chamber. In edge-emitting ...

So how does a diode switch work? The key lies in that one-way valve we mentioned earlier. When the diode is forward biased and conducting electricity it will pass through any variations in the ...

To [Hales] this sounded like it could also act as a diode and so he went to work doing plenty of experiments and refinements until he was confident he had something that worked fairly well.

In essence, the four-layer diode was the first integrated circuit since it did the work of two transistors, two resistors, and a diode -- all in a single crystal. Unfortunately, they were so ...