Erbium doped materials are of great interest in thin film integrated optoelectronic technology, due to their Er3+ intra-4f emission at 1.54 μm, a standard telecommunication wavelength. Er-doped dielectric thin films can be used to fabricate planar optical amplifiers or lasers that can be integrated with other devices on the same chip. Semiconductors, such as silicon, can also be doped with erbium. In this case the Er may be excited through optically or electrically generated charge carriers. Er-doped Si light-emitting diodes may find applications in Si-based optoelectronic circuits. In this article, the synthesis, characterization, and application of several different Er-doped thin film photonic materials is described. It focuses on oxide glasses (pure SiO2, phosphosilicate, borosilicate, and soda-lime glasses), ceramic thin films (Al2O3, Y2O3, LiNbO3), and amorphous and crystalline silicon, all doped with Er by ion implantation. MeV ion implantation is a technique that is ideally suited to dope these materials with Er as the ion range corresponds to the typical micron dimensions of these optical materials. The role of implantation defects, the effect of annealing, concentration dependent effects, and optical activation are discussed and compared for the various materials.

Erbium implanted thin film photonic materials

Wavelength multiplexers, demultiplexers and routers based on optical phased arrays play a key role in multiwavelength telecommunication links and networks. In this paper, a detailed description of phased-array operation and design is presented and an overview is given of the most important applications.

/pdf/phasar-based-wdm-devices-principles-design-and-applications-33y40xbkkm.pdf

PHASAR-based WDM-devices: Principles, design and applications

We report on advances in polymeric waveguide technologies developed worldwide for the telecom and datacom markets, and we describe in detail one such technology developed at AlliedSignal. Optical polymers are versatile materials that can be readily formed into planar single-mode, multimode, and microoptical waveguide structures ranging in dimensions from under a micrometer to several hundred micrometers. These materials can be thermoplastics, thermosets, or photopolymers, and the starting formulations are typically either polymers or oligomers in solution or liquid monomers. Transmission losses in polymers can be minimized, typically by halogenation, with state-of-the-art loss values being about 0.01 dB/cm at 840 nm and about 0.1 dB/cm at 1550 nm. A number of polymers have been shown to exhibit excellent environmental stability and have demonstrated capability in a variety of demanding applications. Waveguides can be formed by direct photolithography, reactive ion etching, laser ablation, molding, or embossing. Well-developed adhesion schemes permit the use of polymers on a wide range of rigid and flexible substrates. Integrated optical devices fabricated to date include numerous passive and active elements that achieve a variety of coupling, routing, filtering, and switching functions.

Advances in polymer integrated optics

Optical Filter Design and Analysis

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are considered as the way to make photonic systems or subsystems cheap and ubiquitous. PICs still are several orders of magnitude more expensive than their microelectronic counterparts, which has restricted their application to a few niche markets. Recently, a novel approach in photonic integration is emerging which will reduce the R&D and prototyping costs and the throughput time of PICs by more than an order of magnitude. It will bring the application of PICs that integrate complex and advanced photonic functionality on a single chip within reach for a large number of small and larger companies and initiate a breakthrough in the application of Photonic ICs. The paper explains the concept of generic photonic integration technology using the technology developed by the COBRA research institute of TU Eindhoven as an example, and it describes the current status and prospects of generic InP-based integration technology.

/pdf/an-introduction-to-inp-based-generic-integration-technology-4in7v2nauv.pdf

An introduction to InP-based generic integration technology

This paper presents an overview of integrated optics routing and coupling devices based on multimode interference. The underlying self-imaging principle in multimode waveguides is described using a guided mode propagation analysis. Special issues concerning the design and operation of multimode interference devices are discussed, followed by a survey of reported applications. It is shown that multimode interference couplers offer superior performance, excellent tolerance to polarization and wavelength variations, and relaxed fabrication requirements when compared to alternatives such as directional couplers, adiabatic X- or Y-junctions, and diffractive star couplers. >

/pdf/optical-multi-mode-interference-devices-based-on-self-2rd0j9052m.pdf

Optical multi-mode interference devices based on self-imaging: principles and applications

We report on a novel fully packaged micro-optical polarization diversity hybrid, which shows excellent performance in combination with large fabrication and assembly tolerances. Our novel design employs highly parallel glass plates, which results in parallel and equidistant input and output beams. Critical fabrication and alignment procedures are thus avoided. At the target wavelength of 1.55 /spl mu/m, typical fiber-to-fiber insertion loss is 0.7 dB, balancing is 50/spl plusmn/3%, polarization extinction ratios are better than 25 dB, and measured optical back reflection is smaller than -58 dB. Wavelength insensitive behavior has been observed, resulting in a wide usable spectral operating range in excess of 90 nm. The micro-optical hybrid has been successfully tested in a dual-balanced polarization-diversity coherent CPFSK transmission experiment at 2.5 Gbt/s. >

/pdf/ultra-fabrication-tolerant-fully-packaged-micro-optical-3smbniho1m.pdf

E.C.M. Pennings

Papers

Optical multi-mode interference devices based on self-imaging: principles and applications

Ultra fabrication-tolerant fully packaged micro-optical polarization diversity hybrid

Ultra fabrication-tolerant micro-optical polarization-diversity hybrid

Fully packaged ultra-fabrication-tolerant micro-optical polarization-diversity hybrid