Integrated optical circuit

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An integrated optical circuit is one or more circuits composed of solid-state optical components on a semiconductor or dielectric substrate. Components include light sources, optical filters, photodetectors, and thin-film optical waveguides. An example of an integrated optical circuit is an opto-isolator (or opto-coupler) which allows one circuit to interact with another while remaining electrically separated from the other. A 2005 development^[1] solved a quantum noise problem that prevented silicon from being used to generate laser light, permitting new integrated optical circuits to use high-bandwidth laser light generated within the circuit itself as a signal medium.

This technology is of interest to computing due to:

• Optical transmission speed is 21 cm/ns faster than copper.
• A lack of electromagnetic interference between optical signals, eliminating crosstalk and stray capacitances in computers.

[edit] References

1. ^ Rong, Haisheng; Jones, Richard; Liu, Ansheng; Cohen, Oded; Hak, Dani; Fang, Alexander; and Paniccia, Mario (February 2005). "A continuous-wave Raman silicon laser" (PDF). Nature 433 (7027): 725–728. DOI:10.1038/nature03346. 

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