The phenomenon is said to combine semiconductor and terahertz techniques and to allow a new kind of logical operation in microelectronics. Using the approach, the group believes that it will be possible to design new kinds of processors which function partly through optics and partly through electricity.
"An optical pulse functioning on a terahertz frequency brings information –or the so called correlation of the electron hole pair – from one side of the interface to the other, without any tunnelling of the exciton itself," said Professor Ilkka Tittonen from Aalto University. "No phenomenon that would be fully equivalent to this has been found previously in the field of modern physics."
