A TECHNOLOGICAL breakthrough by University of Sydney scientists could lead to people downloading the latest movie in a few seconds or chatting with small, cheap, video systems.

The physicists have developed a revolutionary optical chip that could improve internet speeds to up to 100 times faster than Australia's networks.

"The most exciting thing is that it is just a piece of scratched glass. It is very simple, so it is potentially cheap," said Ben Eggleton, the director of the university's Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems, CUDOS.