According to Cornell University's Chronicle Online researchers at the Cornell Nanophotonics Group have created a broadband light amplifier on a silicon chip. The photonic device replaces microscopic electric wires with light traveling through microscopic waveguides. Photonic circuits are expected to find their first applications as repeaters and routers for fiber-optic communications, where several different wavelengths are sent over a single fiber at the same time, amplifying the multiplexed traffic. Other predictions include all-optical switching, optical signal regeneration and optical sources for quantum computing.