The PICCO project: a survey

This presentation will provide a limited overview of work carried out in the multi-partner PICCO (photonic integrated circuits by crystal optics) project. In particular, the III-V material system used in PICCO is the AlGaAs/GaAs material system. In the PICCO project, the approach used for lithographic pattern definition has been, so far, primarily the ´conventional´ one, i.e. direct-write electron-beam lithography. But, at the outset, our recognition of the need for a genuinely mass-production approach has led to work on excimer-laser based photolithography, with high-precision masks giving a replicative approach.