The optoelectronics world and the United States Department of Defense predict the integration of lasers into standard CMOS processing by 2010. Researches on lasing in silicon have been conducted. These include a multi-university research initiative (MURI) administered out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Microphotonics Center. The study has been aimed at demonstrating an electronically pumped silicon (Si) layer. Another study at the University of New Mexico, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and Air Force Office of Scientific Research, has been undertaken. The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has reported optically pumped silicon lasers. A decrease in power consumption of optically pumped silicon lasers has been observed. Two different routes to an electronically pumped silicon laser are given focus: one that uses an active germanium layer deposited on silicon and another that uses nanocrystalline silicon and erbium. At the University of New Mexico, II-V optical materials on the same orientation silicon are being grown. These are used in standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing. Using this approach, the cracks and strains that are produced due to differences in atomic size are relieved by a self-assembly process. Material and process mismatch issues have also been addressed. At UCLA, nonlinear photovoltaic properties of silicon amplifiers have been used. These properties allow recycling of lost power and elimination of inefficiencies in optically pumped silicon lasers.