Planar structure optoelectronic integrated circuits: Towards advanced optical processing and communication

Optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) have been investigated acceleratingly for recent several years due to their potential advantages of high-speed performance, multi-functionality, high realiability and mass-productivity. For the realization of these OEICs, a planar integrated structure is a key requirement. This paper describes our recent developments of planar structure OEICs applied to both GaAs-and InP-based material systems. A GaAs-based multi-channel transmit OEIC with planar, embedded quantum well lasers was fabricated. Planar structure metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiodes were introduced for fabricating GaAs-based receive OEICs with improved circuit complexity. An optical 4 × 4 switch module was also demonstrated by these transmit and receive OEICs. An InGaAs OEIC receiver was fabricated by an embedded, low-capacitance PIN photodiode and an InAlAs/InGaAs MESFET. All the OEICs presented have shown successful operation at a bit rate of 1.5-2 Gbps.