Reliability of photonic systems - an introduction

In this paper introduction to the issue of reliability of photonic devices and system is given. We start with the general overview of the field of photonics, and explore the arising reliability issues. Several experiments related to reliability measurements and evaluation has been performed and is described here. General requirements for building and performing the proper experiment are formulated first. Parameters selection and measurement procedures are discussed. Next, the problem of performing accurate and repeatable measurements of optical waveguides is discussed. Setups for measurements of refractive index and attenuation of fabricated waveguides are described; accuracy and repeatability of measurements is discussed also. In optoelectronic devices optical elements such as waveguides or lenses are very reliable - it is junctions between them or electronic parts that are the weak points of the whole package - it is therefore important to test the whole systems. We have built a simple bit error tester for testing the quality of the fiber optic link. Outline of its construction and programming are also given in the paper. In order to measure the attenuation under thermal stress dedicated set-up had been build, which is also described here.