The result was a microscale device that shows a 1’000 percent increase in conductivity when activated by low voltage and a low power laser, according to a report on UC San Diego’s news site.

So why is this such a big deal? – well the capabilities of current microelectronic devices, lets say transistors, are in the end limited by the properties of their component materials – such as their semiconductors, the report continues.

This replacement could scale the speed, wavelength and power handling of microelectronic to beyond what is available today.