Avalanche Photodiode Focal Plane Arrays and Their Application to Laser Detection and Ranging

Focal-plane avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are being more and more widely and deeply studied to satisfy the requirement in weak light and single photon imaging. The progresses of this worldwide study, especially the distinctive researches and achievements in Southwest Institute of Technical Physics and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China are reviewed in this chapter. We successfully fabricated up to 64 × 1 linear-mode Si APD arrays, and 32 × 32–64 × 64 Si single-photon avalanche detector (SPAD) arrays, and applied them in Laser Detection and Ranging (LADAR) platforms like driverless vehicles. Also, we developed 32 × 32–64 × 64 InGaAsP/InP SPAD arrays, and constructed three-dimensional imaging LADAR using them. Together with the progresses of other groups and other materials, we see a prospective future for the development and application of focal-plane APDs

Electro-optical And All-optical Switching In Multimode Interference Waveguides Incorporating Semiconductor Nanostructures

The application of epitaxially grown, III-V semiconductor-based nanostructures to the development of electro-optical and all-optical switches is investigated through the fabrication and testing of integrated photonic devices designed using multimode interference (MMI) waveguides. The properties and limitations of the materials are explored with respect to the operation of those devices through electrical carrier injection and optical pumping. MMI waveguide geometry was employed as it offered advantages such as a very compact device footprint, low polarization sensitivity, large bandwidth and relaxed fabrication tolerances when compared with conventional single-mode waveguide formats. The first portion of this dissertation focuses on the characterization of the materials and material processing techniques for the monolithic integration of In0.15Ga0.85As/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots (SAQD) and InGaAsP/InGaAsP multiple quantum wells (MQW). Supplemental methods for post-growth bandgap tuning and waveguide formation were developed, including a plasma treatment process which is demonstrated to reliably inhibit thermally induced interdiffusion of Ga and In atoms in In0.15Ga0.85As/GaAs quantum dots. The process is comparable to the existing approach of capping the SAQD wafer with TiO2, while being simpler to implement along-side companion techniques such as impurity free vacancy disordering. Study of plasma-surface interactions in both wafer structures suggests that the effect may be dependent on the composition of the contact layer. The second portion of this work deals with the design, fabrication, and the testing of MMI switches which are used to investigate the limits of electrical current control when employing SAQD as the active core material. A variable power splitter based on a 3-dB MMI coupler is used to analyze the effects of sub-microsecond electrical current pulses in relation to carrier and thermal nonlinearities. Electrical current controlled switching of the variable power splitter and a tunable 2 x 2 MMI coupler is also demonstrated. The third part of this dissertation explores the response of In0.15Ga0.85As/GaAs SAQD waveguide structures to photogenerated carriers. Also presented is a simple, but effective, design modification to the 2 x 2 MMI cross-coupler switch that allows control over the carrier distribution within the MMI waveguide. This technique is combined with selective-area bandgap tuning to demonstrate a compact, working, all-optical MMI based switch

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3, reports on twenty-one research projects and a list of publications and meeting papers.Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-91-C-0091Charles S. Draper Laboratories Contract DL-H-441692MIT Lincoln LaboratoryNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-12787Fujitsu LaboratoriesU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1302National Center for Integrated Photonic TechnologyNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 85-52701U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Grant N00014-91-C-0084U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Grant N00014-91-J-1956National Institutes of Health Grant R01-GM35459-08U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-93-1-0301MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract BX-5098Electric Power Research Institute Contract RP3170-2

Q-switched diode lasers

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN004525 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on twenty-three research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-91-C-0091Charles S. Draper Laboratories Contract DL-H-441629MIT Lincoln LaboratoryNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-12787Fujitsu LaboratoriesU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1302National Center for Integrated PhotonicsNational Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyNational Science Foundation Grant EET 88-15834Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-91-C-0001National Science Foundation Fellowship ECS-85-52701U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MGH) Contract N00014-91-C-0084U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-91-J-1956National Institutes of Health Grant NIH-5-RO1-GM35459-08Bose CorporationLawrence Livermore National Laboratories Subcontract B160530U.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-89-ER14012Rockwell International CorporationSpace Exploration AssociatesFuture Energy Applied Technology, Inc

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on eighteen research projects.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract MDA972-92-J-1038Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-0038National Science Foundation Grant ECS 94-23737U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-95-1-0221U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0715MIT Center for Material Science and EngineeringNational Center for Integrated Photonics Technology Contract DMR 94-00334National Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-94-1-0717National Institutes of Health Grant 9-R01-EY11289MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract BX-5098Electric Power Research Institute Contract RP3170-25ENEC

Monolithic integrated reflective transceiver in indium phosphide

The work presented in this thesis is about an InP based monolithic integrated reflective transceiver meant for use in future fiber access networks at the user site. The motivation for this research results from the users’ demands for ever-increasing bandwidth at low cost of operation, administration and maintenance. We investigated solutions to these challenges with a network concept using a dynamically reconfigurable optical network topology with a wavelength router and a colorless optical network unit. This work focuses on developing the optical part of the optical network unit, a reflective transceiver. This reflective transceiver consists of three basic components: a tunable wavelength duplexer, a photodetector and a reflective modulator. The tunable wavelength duplexer separates two wavelengths, one for the downstream and one for the upstream signals, and guides them to the photodetector and the reflective modulator. The photodetector detects the downstream data. The reflective modulator modulates the light carrier with the upstream data and reflects it back to the network. The integrated transceiver was realized bymonolithically integrating these components on a common active-passive butt-joint layer stack based on InP technology. This approach not only offers high bandwidth for both downstream data and upstream data, but also lowers the cost of the device and the network operation because of the colorless operation at the user site. The main results obtained within this work are summarized as follows: an efficient and polarization insensitive tunable wavelength duplexer was realized; a new method to fabricate a reflective SOA has been proposed and demonstrated; a high performance waveguide photodetector based on SOA layer stack was successfully fabricated; a low cost photoreceiverwhich includes an InP photodetector and a SiGe amplifier was demonstrated; aworking monolithic integrated reflective transceiver based on InP was successfully realized and demonstrated; two monolithic integrated transceivers aiming for higher bandwidth have been designed and fabricated. In addition, a novel MMI reflector has been proposed and realized with high reflectivity. This work was funded by DutchMinistry of Economic Affairs through the Freeband Project Broadband Photonics Access, the Smartmix projectMemphis and the NRC Photonics

Characterization of wavelength tunable lasers for use in wavelength packet switched networks

The telecom industry's greatest challenge, and the optical systems and components vendors' biggest opportunity is enabling providers to expand their data services. The solution lies in making optical networks more responsive to customer needs, i.e., making them more rapidly adaptable. One possible technique to achieve this is to employ wavelength tunable optical transmitters. The importance of tunability grows greater every year, as the average number of channels deployed on DWDM platforms increases. By deploying tunable lasers it is much easier to facilitate forecasting, planning and last minute changes in the network. This technology provides with solution for inventory reduction. It also offers solution for fast switching at packet level. The conducted research activities of the project was divided in two work packages: 1. Full static characterization-the laser used in the experiment was a butterfly-packaged Sampled Grating DBR laser with four electrically tunable sections. LabView programme was developed for distant control of the equipment and the laser itself. The parameters required for creating a look-up table with the exact currents for the four sections of the laser, namely wavelength, side mode suppression ratio and output power, were transferred to tables. Based on those tables the currents were defined for each of the 96 different accessible channels. The channel allocation is based on the 50 GHz spacing grid. A detailed analysis of the tuning mechanisms is provided. 2. Dynamic characterization and BER performance in wavelength packet switched WDM systems-a commercially available module was used supplied with the software package for controlling the wavelength channels and setting the laser to switch between any accessible channel. The laser is DBR laser without SOA integration so the dynamic tunability can be investigated. As the switching in the nanosecond regime is executed in the electrical domain, analysis of the switching parameters concerning the electrical circuit as well as laser structure is provided. The actual switching time was defined. The degradation in system performance due to spurious wavelength signals emitted from the tunable module during the switching event and their interference with other active channels was demonstrated by examining the presence of an error floor in the BER rate against received power measurements