Unit V:

Optical amplification and integrated optics

optical amplifier
 An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the
need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of
as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback from the cavity is
suppressed.
 An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the
need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of
as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback from the cavity is
suppressed. Optical amplifiers are important in optical communication and laser
physics. They are used as optical repeaters in the long distance fiberoptic
cables which carry much of the world's telecommunication links
 An optical amplifier is a device which receives some input signal and generates an
output signal with higher optical power. Typically, inputs and outputs are laser beams,
either propagating as Gaussian beams in free space or in a fiber. The amplification
occurs in a so-called gain medium, which has to be “pumped” (i.e., provided with
energy) from an external source. Most optical amplifiers are either optically or
electrically pumped.

Integrated Optics
Integrated optics is a technology which aims at constructing so-called integrated optical
devices or photonic integrated circuits or planar lightwave circuits, containing several or
many optical components which are combined to fulfill some more or less complex functions.
Such components can e.g. be optical filters, modulators, amplifiers, lasers and photodetectors.
 They can, e.g., be fabricated on the surface of some crystalline material (such as silicon,
silica, or LiNbO3) and connected with waveguides.

The original inspiration 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 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:

 While electronic circuits can contain extremely small wires, 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. (This limitation might be
eliminated by using waveguides with very high index contrast, e.g. nanofibers or photonic
bandgap waveguides.)

 Optical connections, e.g. between waveguides, and couplers are significantly more critical
than electrical connections.

 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.

 Some types of optical components can hardly be miniaturized.

For these reasons, integrated optical circuits have not reached by far the complexity of
electronic integrated circuits. However, devices of moderate complexity can still be useful for
example for optical fiber communications, where they can host multiple data transmitters
and/or receivers, consisting of distributed feedback lasers, optical modulators, photodiodes,
and optical filters (e.g. in the form of arrayed waveguide gratings). Recently, new hope for a
powerful and cost-effective integrated optical technology has arisen from developments
in silicon photonics

 integrated optical devices

 Integrated optics is a technology which aims at constructing so-called integrated
optical devices or photonic integrated circuits or planar lightwave circuits, containing
several or many optical components which are combined to fulfill some more or less
complex functions.