Abstract

Photonic lightwave circuits are optical devices comprised of waveguides and sometimes active devices, such as phase shifters, amplifiers, or modulators. This field is immense, including devices from electroabsorption modulated lasers to acoustooptic wavelength add-drops. Because of the limited time, we have chosen to focus on arrayed-waveguide-based and a few other interferometer-based devices. This will include multi/demultiplexers, dynamic gain equalization filters, wavelength add-drops, dispersion compensators, switches, and optical regenearators. It has been claimed for a long time now that photonic lightwave circuits should be cheaper to build in large quantities than their bulk counterparts and thus capture the marketplace. We will also discuss cases where this has and has not happened.

© 2001 Optical Society of America