Morgan & Claypool Semiconductor Integrated Optics for Switching Light (IOP Concise Physics)

This book covers the technology of switching or modulating light in semiconductor optical waveguides. Currently a key function for optical communications systems is the conversion of data from an electrical signal to an optical signal for transmission in very low loss optical fibres and the converse process of optical to electrical conversion the O/E/O data conversion. This conversion between electronic and photonic signals imposes an energy consumption overhead on optical communication systems. So many research workers have been attracted to ultrafast all-optical switching of data in different formats. As a way of introduction to all-optical switching in semiconductor waveguides the book covers the electro-optic effect, electroabsorption and electrorefraction; effects that can be used in semiconductor optical modulation devices. But the book focuses on all-optical switching using second and third order optical nonlinearities in AlGaAs optical waveguides. It covers a variety of device configurations including integrated nonlinear couplers and Mach-Zehnder interferometers. Further, it provides design software in suit of Mathematica notebooks that can be used to explore the device design. About the Author Professor Charlie Ironside is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Curtin University (Western Australia). He received his PhD from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) and in 1998 was appointed Professor of Quantum Electronics at the University of Glasgow. He has over 30 years of experience in semiconductor optoelectronics research and in particular, microfabrication of photonic components. He is a Fellow of the IET, a Fellow of the IOP, and senior member of IEEE. Along with hundreds of papers, he has co-authored five patents.