Guided-Wave Optic Devices for Integrated Optic Information Processing

摘要

Integrated or Guided-Wave Optics is an emerging technology that has the ultimate potential of integrating miniature optical components such as laser light sources, modulators, switches, deflectors, lenses, prisms, and detectors in a common substrate. The resultant integrated optic circuits and subsystems are expected to have a number of advantages over the conventional bulk optical systems in certain areas of applications. Some of the advantages include smaller size and lighter weight, wider bandwidth, lesser electrical drive power requirement, greater signal accessibility, and integratability. The integrated optic circuits are also expected to possess advantages in stability, reliability, ruggedness, and ultimate cost. It has been recognized for some time that the most immediate applications of integrated optics lie in the areas of wideband multichannel communications and signal processing (for both civilian applications such as fiber optic systems and military hardwares such as sensors and radars). The general objectives of this research program are to study the basic physical mechanisms/phenomenon of new and novel guided-wave devices with application to wideband multichannel optical information processing. The major tasks that have been carried out during this program year include theoretical and experimental research on the following two major topics: (1) Wideband Guided-Wave Acoustooptic Interactions and Devices in GaAs-ZnO composite waveguides, and (2) Planar Guided-Wave Magneto-Optic Bragg Diffraction and Devices in YIG-GGG Waveguides.