Optoelectronic

integrated circuits
Optoelectronic integrated circuits
▪ Integrated circuits with optic and electronic components
▪ Integrated technology for optical devices
▪ developed within optical fiber communications
▪ fabricate a complete system onto a single chip.
▪ containing several or many optical components which are combined
to achieve some more or less complex functions.
▪ Example of Integrated optical devices are
▪ optical filters, modulators, amplifiers and others.
▪ They can, e.g., be fabricated on the surface of some crystalline
material (such as silicon, silica)and connected with waveguides.
Optoelectronic integrated circuits
• Made by Photolithography and other new
forms of integration
• Materials used
• Lithium Niobate
• Gallium Arsenide
• Indium Phosphide
• Silica on Silicon
 • The original idea of integrated optics came from the
technology of electronic integrated circuits, which has
shown rapid development over several decades and has
led to amazing achievements, such as complex and
powerful microprocessors containing many millions of
transistors, specialized signal processors and computer
Motivation memory chips with huge data storage capacity.

• Unfortunately, integrated optics has not been able to

match the progress of microelectronics in terms of the
complexity of possible devices. This results from a
number of technical limitations:
 1. The electronic circuits can contain extremely small wires, but
in the optical components need to be connected via
waveguides, the dimensions of which usually cannot be much
smaller than the wavelength, and which often cannot tolerate
very sharp bends.

Technical 2. Optical connections, e.g. between waveguides, and couplers

Limitations
are significantly more difficult than electrical connections.

3. Waveguides, device connections and passive optical

components exhibit optical losses, which often need to be
compensated with optical amplifiers. These are larger and
more complex than electronic amplifiers based on transistors.

4. Some types of optical components are difficult to minimize.

 • For these reasons, integrated optical circuits
have not reached by far the complexity of
electronic integrated circuits.
• However, devices of moderate complexity can
Technical still be useful for example for optical fiber
Limitations communications, where they can host multiple
data transmitters and/or receivers, consisting of
distributed feedback lasers, optical modulators,
photodiodes, and optical filters.
 • The use of optical fiber offers the possibility of
high-speed operation and faster than that
employing electronic circuits.
• the ability to utilize optical fiber of different
frequencies (or wavelengths) within the same
Advantages guided wave channel or device. hence, this
possibility for powerful parallel signal
processing coupled with ultra high-speed
operation offers tremendous potential for
applications within both communications and
computing.
 • Fiber Optics have minimal loss
• Minimal Noise
• Low Voltage and Power input
Advantages • High bandwidth
• Optical frequencies:
• From 4x1014 Hz to 2x1016 Hz
• Infrared to Ultraviolet
 What is on a OEIC chip?
• Unlike electronic integrated circuits, there is no primary
device like microcontrollers/ microprocessors
• Passive
• Waveguides
• Power Splitters/couplers
• Switches
• Attenuators
• Isolators
• Multiplexers
• Filters

• Active
• Light sources: Lasers/LEDs
• Optical Amplifiers
• Detectors: Photodiodes, Photo transistors, solar cells
 LIGHT EMITTING DIODE
❖ LED is an optical diode
❖ it emits light when FB ; process called electroluminescence

❖ Symbol is similar to PN Junction diode apart from two arrows

indicates - device emits the light energy

Basic operation :

❖ PN junction is in forward bias : electron in N type cross the Jn &

recombine with hole in P type semiconductor material

❖ Free electrons are in the conduction band and at a higher energy

than the holes in the valence band.

❖ When free electron combine with holes, it fall from CB to VB :

energy level changed from high value to low value

10
 LIGHT EMITTING DIODE
❖When free electron combine with holes, it fall from CB to
VB : energy level changed from high value to low value
❖ The difference in energy between Higher level and lower level is
released in the form of photon (emits light energy) due to material
property

❖Energy released in the form of light depends on the energy

corresponding to forbidden gap
• Determines the wavelength of the emitted light.
❖ wavelength determines colour of the light. Various
impurities are added during the doping process to control the
wavelength & colour of the emitted light
 LIGHT EMITTING DIODE

❖Materials used in LED

✓ GaAs, GaAsP or GaP (mixures of elements gallium, arsenic and phosphorus)
✓ GaAs - Infrared radiation (Invisible)
✓ GaAsP - Red or yellow light
✓ GaP - Red or green light
✓ Some LEDs - blue & orange light(InGaN)
❖ LEDs emit no light when reverse biased. Operating LED in reverse direction will
quickly destroy them

12
Integrated Lasers
• Types: • Advantages:
• Gas • Compact
• Solid-State • Low power consumption
• Semiconductor • High-Speed Modulation
• VCSEL • Tunable
Laser Diodes (LDs)
Lasers (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission)
Photon emission processes:

Absorption Spontaneous emission Stimulated emission

14
Photo Diodes (PDs)

A photodiode is a semiconductor diode that functions as a photodetector.

It is a p-n junction or p-i-n structure. When a photon of sufficient energy
strikes the diode, it excites an electron thereby creating a mobile electron
and a positively charged electron hole

15
PDs’ Detection Range and Materials

Material Wavelength range (nm)

Silicon (Si) 190–1100

Germanium (Ge) 400–1700

Indium gallium arsenide 800–2600

(InGaAs)

Lead sulfide (PbS) <1000-3500

16
Optical-Fiber couplers
• couplers are a basic element of many optical fiber
communication systems , often perform a distribute or
combine in many branch fibers.
Waveguides
• An optical waveguide is a spatially
inhomogeneous structure for guiding light, i.e. for
restricting the spatial region in which light can
propagate.
• Usually, a waveguide contains a region of
increased refractive index, compared with the
surrounding medium (called cladding).
• Light transmits through total internal reflection
Total Internal Reflection

Credit:
Wikipedia.org
• Angle of incidence for which the angle of
refraction is 90° when travelling from denser to
rarer medium
• 𝐴𝑡 𝜃1 = 𝜃𝑐 , 𝜃2 = 90° ; sin 𝜃2 = 1
𝑛2 −1 𝑛2
• ∴ sin 𝜃𝑐 = ; 𝜃𝑐 = sin
𝑛1 𝑛1
Waveguides
• Three types
• Planar waveguides:
• also called slab waveguides, are waveguides with a
planar geometry, which guide light only in one dimension.
• Rectangular (channel waveguides)
• Channel waveguides (or strip waveguides) are a class of
waveguides having the form of a channel running along
the surface of some solid transparent host medium – a
dielectric or a semiconductor. In contrast to planar
waveguides, they provide guidance of light not only in one
dimension, but in two dimensions – similar to an optical
fiber, only that channel waveguides are usually stiff, i.e.,
they cannot be bent.
• Cylindrical
• Optical fibers
Optical Fiber
• Transparent fiber
• Made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic
• Glass fiber
• Polymer fiber
• Structure of optical fiber
• Core – High refractive index
• Cladding – low refractive index
 Fiber as waveguide
 TIR at core – cladding interface
 Core RI = 1.45
 Cladding RI = 1.43
Types of fibers

 Single mode if V number ≤ 2.405

2𝜋𝑎
 𝑉= 𝑁𝐴
𝜆

Single mode fiber Multimode fiber

Core diameter (um) 8 50 or 62.5
Cladding diameter (um) 125 125
Amplifiers
An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the
need to first convert it to an electrical signal. Optical amplifiers are important in
optical communication . They are used as optical repeaters in the long distance
fiber optic cables which carry much of the world's telecommunication links.
• Principle of Amplifier – Stimulated emission

The most practical amplifiers to data include:

1- semiconductor optical amplifier SOA.
2- Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier EDFA.
 Construction
LASER & SOA - Stimulated emission process - but difference is that;

• LASER diode => amplifier gain medium + facet mirrors

• SOA – gain medium & facets (anti-reflection coating coupled to both fibre
ends => so light amplified travelling just one time(single pass) in gain
medium

Semiconductor LASER Semiconductor Optical Amplifier 24

EDFA
• Erbium doped fiber as gain medium
Fiber-optic filter
Fiber-optic filter is an optical fiber instrument used for wavelength
selection, which can select desired wavelengths to pass and reject
the others.
types of optical filter :
1- Fabry-perot Filter
2- Fiber Bragg Gratings Filter
Fiber Bragg Gratings

λBragg=2neff Λ
• neff - Effective refractive index
• Λ - grating period
Multiplexing
• Wavelength division multiplexers
Multiplexing
• Wavelength division multiplexers

CWDM and DWDM :

Coarse WDM : 20 nm spacing
Dense WDM : 0.4nm spacing
Applications

• Fiber-Optic communications
• Biomedical
• Photonic computing
• Big data computing
OPTICAL SWITCHING
 • A switch that enables signals in optical fibers or
integrated optical circuits (IOCs) to be selectively switched
from one circuit to another.
• OPERATION:
WHAT IS AN • MECHANICAL MEANS such as physically shifting an optical
fiber to drive one or more alternative fibers.

OPTICAL • ELECTRO-OPTIC EFFECTS, MAGNETO-OPTICS, or other

methods.

SWITCH? • TYPES OF OPTICAL SWITCHES (SPEED):

• Slow optical switches, such as those using moving fibers, may be
used for ALTERNATE ROUTING of an
optical transmission path, e.g., routing around a fault.
• Fast optical switches, such as those using electro-optic or
magneto-optic effects, may be used to perform logic operations.
❖MECHANICAL SWITCH
➢ Each individual fiber is manually moved.
➢ optical fiber is physically moved to drive alternate fibers.
➢ Physically shifting an optical fiber to drive one or more alternative
fibers.

❖ELECTRO-OPTIC SWITCH
➢ Change in electric field that varies slowly in comparison to the
speed or intensity of light.
➢ Eg: lithium Niobate switch
Lithium Niobate Waveguide Switch
The switch below constructed on a lithium niobate waveguide. An electrical voltage
applied to the electrodes changes the substrate’s index of refraction. The change in the
index of refraction manipulates the light through the appropriate waveguide path to the
desired port.

An electrooptic directional coupler switch

❖ THERMO-OPTIC SWITCH
Utilizes thermo optic effect in optical waveguides.(main materials are silica and polymers)
The device is based on Mach-Zender interferometer. Consists of a 3-dB coupler that splits the signal into two
beams, which then travel through two distinct arms of the same length, and a second 3-dB coupler, which
merges and finally splits the signal again.
Heating one arm of the interferometer causes its rerfractive index to change. A variation of the optical path of that
arm is experienced. It is thus possible to vary the phase difference between the light beams. As interference is
constructive or destructive, the power on alternate outputs is minimized or maximized.
❖ ACOUSTIC-OPTIC SWITCHING
➢ It employs the acousto-optic effect.
➢ In acousto-optic Q-switches, an ultrasonic wave is launched into a block of
transparent optical material, usually fused silica. By switching on the acoustic field
,a fraction of the energy of the main beam is diffracted out of the resonator, that
prevents laser action(due to loss).
➢ When acoustic field is switched off, full transmission through the Q-switch cell is
restored and a laser pulse is created.

❖ MAGNETO-OPTIC SWITCH
By use of electro-magnetic forces, the switch can be made to transfer the data from
one fiber to the other.
Eg: Faraday effect