Meso-Optics Based WDM Receiver

摘要

The broad goal was to advance the state-of-the art in WDM receiver technology. The approach was to use microcavity resonators since they should enable devices to be very small, rapidly tunable, and with high optical performance characteristics. In order to achieve this goal, design tools -- Maxwell equation solvers -- needed to be developed capable of handling long time spans in complex, 3D geometries currently demonstrated devices have been designed with much less computationally-demanding 2D, short time span programs. However, although conceptually simple, these devices are very difficult to fabricate as the precision features are on the surface, horizontal plane of the semiconductor chip. However, by altering the configuration so the most demanding features are vertically-separated layers, fabrication could be greatly eased though using epitaxial growth which is capable of forming very thin, very well- controlled layers. In addition, it may be possible to design complex structures that decrease the need for sharp, large index changes, which also are difficult to fabricate, without unduly compromising performance. For the complex 3D geometries that are required, intuition is often misleading and the use of accurate design tools are essential.