Materials and device technologies developed over the past few decades have provided the foundation for the current explosion in computing systems, wireless communications, and optical networks. For example, fiber-optic capacity has increased over the past decade from 10 to 3000 Gbps because of doped fiber amplifiers, semiconductor lasers, high-speed optical modulators, wavelength filters and routers, and high-speed devices for associated electronic circuits. Similarly, breakthroughs in materials and device technology have the potential to enable dramatic advances in the new Internet telecommunications system.