Integrated optical devices for telecommunications

Integrated optical devices have received a lot of interest in recent years. With electronic devices becoming smaller and smaller, semiconductor industries are facing significantly difficult problems. Photonic devices have unique characteristics which can avoid problems in electronic devices and they can achieve better performance. However, the development of integrated optical devices is needed to realize integrated optical circuits in the future.; In this thesis, three aspects of integrated optical devices were studied for telecommunication applications. First, integrated isolators were fabricated. Dry etching and wet etching recipes have been developed for the well-known isolator material, yttrium iron garnet (Y3Fe5O 12), and ridge waveguides were patterned into YIG with different configurations. Integrated polarizers based on 2-D YIG photonic crystals (PCs) were also fabricated using a Focused Ion Beam (FIB). Second, an inexpensive method to fabricate 2-D PCs was developed using anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) as an etch mask. An approach to grow nanopores on top of various films/substrates was found. This approach involved growing aluminum films directly onto the substrate of choice, and then anodizing the film electrochemically. The next step was to use reactive ion etching (RIE) to transfer the newly obtained AAO pattern to the underlying films/substrates, and so make PCs, for example in ordered porous Si. The third project was to simulate 1-D and 2-D tunable electro-optic filters for telecommunications. Interfering thin-film structures were studied with Pb(Mg1/3Nb1/3)O3-PbTiO3(PMN-PT) as a 1-D tunable electro-optic layer. Design rules were developed and the performance of these filters was compared with the requirements in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). 2-D tunable electro-optic filters were also designed based on 2-D photonic crystals and Fabry-Perot structures. The design flow was demonstrated and some results were elaborated. These three projects have brought together various areas of integrated photonics which helped to expand the choices of future photonic engineers.