Team Demonstrates Single-Chip Phonon Laser for Surface Acoustic Waves

Overview

• The University of Colorado Boulder, University of Arizona, and Sandia National Laboratories reported the result in Nature on January 14, 2026.
• The bar-shaped prototype measures about half a millimeter and uses a silicon base with lithium niobate and indium gallium arsenide layers to couple electrons to surface vibrations.
• The device produced coherent surface acoustic waves at about 1 gigahertz in tests, with authors describing clear paths to many tens or even hundreds of gigahertz.
• The architecture functions as a diode-laser analog, using electrical pumping and reflectors to amplify forward-moving waves while suppressing backward loss.
• Compared with common SAW components that often require two chips and operate around 4 gigahertz, the single-chip approach could consolidate radio functions and reduce size and power, though it remains a laboratory demonstration.