Such an advance could enable all communications, from high-definition Television broadcasts to secure Computer connections, to be transmitted from a single base station, said Minghao Qi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Ordinarily, the continuous waves of conventional radio-frequency transmissions encounter interference from stray signals reflecting off of the walls and objects inside a house or office. However, the pulsing nature of the signals produced by the new "chip-based spectral shaper" reduces the interference that normally plagues radio frequency communications, said Andrew Weiner, Purdue's Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Each laser pulse lasts about 100 femtoseconds, or one-tenth of a trillionth of a second. These pulses are processed using "optical arbitrary waveform technology" pioneered by Purdue researchers led by Weiner.

Findings have appeared online in the journal Nature Photonics and were published in the February print issue of the magazine. The research is based at Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center in the university's Discovery Park.

"What enables this technology is that our devices generate ultrabroad bandwidth radio frequencies needed to transmit the high data rates required for high resolution displays,"

Such a technology might eventually be developed to both receive and transmit signals.

"But initially, industry will commercialize devices that only receive signals, for 'one-way' traffic, such as television sets, projectors, monitors and printers," Qi said. "This is because the sending unit for transmitting data is currently still a little bulky. Later, if the sending unit can be integrated into the devices, we could enjoy full two-way traffic, enabling the wireless operation of things like hard-disc drives and computers."