Micro/nano-scale design, fabrication, and integration of generic and application-specific optical printed circuit boards (OPCB) and VLSI photonic integrated circuits

Abstract

This paper presents a collective review of our original work on the micro/nano-scale design, fabrication and integration of waveguide arrays and devices for what we call generic and application-specific optical printed circuit boards (O-PCBs) and VLSI photonic integrated circuits (VLSI-PICs). O-PCBs and VLSI-PICs, both generic or application specific, consist of planar circuits and arrays of polymer waveguides and devices of various dimensions and characteristics to perform the functions of transporting, switching, routing and distributing signals on flat modular boards. We fabricate wires out of polymer, silica, or silicon materials. Generic O-PCBs and VLSIPICs consist of an layer carrying basic forms of wires and devices and an electrical layer carrying arrays of electrical wires and devices. Application-specific O-PCBs and VLSI-PICs carry layers that are composed of varied forms of wires and devices tailored to perform specific functions. For generic structures of O-PCBs and VLSI-PICs, we present theoretical calculations leading to basic design rules for the miniaturization of the waveguide devices and for the maximization of the integration densities of the waveguides and devices to be placed on the board or chips. For application specific O-PCBs we present several examples, including O-PCB and modules for inter-chip optical interconnection for computer systems, an all-optical wavelength splitting triplexer module for subscriber telecommunication systems, MMIs, and a grating module for sensor systems. For VLSI-PICs we present examples of photonic crystal directional couplers, MMIs, power splitters, wavelength splitters, triplexers, and plasmonic directional couplers.