Hybrid integration of an optical processor on a LIGA motherboard

Over the past few years it has become increasingly clear that semiconductor laser amplifiers hold great promise for very high speed all-optical nonlinear processing applications. The small size of the semiconductor amplifier means that, in principle, it should be possible to not only switch at very high rates, but, if the dimensions of the overall device are small enough, to do this on a bit-by-it basis. For repetition rates of 10-100 GHz this demands dimensions of 3 cm down to 3 mm. Clearly, the latter demands a fully integrated approach. However, for dimensions of the order of 3 cm a hybrid technology using bulk optics is an attractive alternative. We investigate the feasibility of this approach by using the LIG(A) process to construct a micro-optic motherboard for the passive assembly of an optical processing system based on the Terahertz Asymmetric Demultiplexer (TOAD) configuration. A schematic representation of a TOAD as configured using an optical fibre loop is shown