The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, has the potential to allow faster, more efficient electronic devices; further shrinking the size of our phones, tablets and computers and reducing their energy consumption by turning waste heat into power.

Working in collaboration with the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey and the University of Cambridge, ORC scientists Dr Jin Yao and Dr Behrad Gholipour have made prototype devices that use light to bring together different computing functions into one component.

The work builds on contributions from Dr TaeHoon Lee at Cambridge, who performed molecular-dynamics simulations on the materials to better understand their structure, and Dr Mark Hughes at Surrey, who has been studying the effect of dopants on glasses for a number of years and measured the electrical current generated by light in these devices.

Silicon is reaching its fundamental limits, soon we will be unable to reduce the silicon chip any smaller, or decrease the power consumption of these devices. Using a family of materials called chalcogenides, a glass material integral to data technologies such as CDs and DVDs, Dr Yao and Dr Gholipour are looking beyond the silicon chip for the next generation of materials, which could replace traditional semiconductors and the conventional electronics that power today’s electronic devices.

By doping a chalcogenide glass, in this case a material based on germanium and selenium, and forming a multilayer structure with electrical contacts, Dr Gholipour was able to show the same switching behaviour seen in silicon transistor, but in a device made entirely from glass.

Dr Gholipour explained: “Non-equilibrium doping within chalcogenide glasses enables a unique information processing platform within one material system. This allows traditional electronic computing, along with memory functionality, which opens up the optical spectrum, from the visible far into the infrared, for next generation optoelectronic and fully optical computing applications.” Using similar materials, Dr Yao formed long strips of different types of chalcogenides,