From: swami@chtm.eece.unm.edu (Swami srinivasan)
Subject: OSA Tech Meeting on Optoelectronics - Highlights
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 92 07:17:35 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Summary: future for Opto, markets, requirements, etc.
Followup-To: swami@chtm.eece.unm.edu 
Keywords: R & D, costs, markets.        

	Here's some highlights from the Optoelectronic Technical Group
Meeting at the OSA meeting in Albuquerque, held on Sept. 23rd.

	The discussion featured a panel of experts from industry and
academia. Connie C-Hasnain presided over the discussion, which also
included Bob Byer(Stanford), Tingye Li (AT&T), Dmitri Psaltis (Caltech),
Steve Brueck (U of New Mexico), Niloy Dutta (AT&T), Elsa Garmire (U of
S. California), Kent Carey (HP Labs) and Robert Waarts (Spectra Diode
Labs).

	The  panel members were asked to identify future potential
and markets in Optoelectronics. It was interesting to note the different
ways in which each of them looked at the subject. Here's a brief summary
of their stated opinions (as i understood them):

	STEVE BRUECK (University of New Mexico)

	The market in Opto is expected to hit $30 B in 1993. Both 
OIDA (US) and OITDA (Japan) expect the market to cross $200 B by
A.D. 2000. By then, optical storage in computers and other applications
such as optical interconnects will become significant. However, the
biggest market share will be taken up by DISPLAYs. Steve noted that
the Japanese have been doing a lot of work in this, while the R&D in
the US has tended to concentrate largely on lasers. 

	Integration with Si-CMOS circuitry will be a critical factor
in how well OEIC applications progress, due to the tremendous techno-
logical base that Silicon enjoys. Bit rate and other such considerations
will not be as significant as integration capability when it comes to
economic feasibility of applications.

	Cost is a crucial issue - manufacturing and packaging need to
be less expensive.

	BOB BYER (Stanford University)

	Solid State Lasers are gaining importance. Historically, each
advance in performance of SSLs was preceded by an improvement in the
pumping source. Diode performance in terms of power has grown more
than exponentially with each passing year. However, while diode laser
power was expected by now to go below $10/Watt, it is now
at around $200/Watt. 

	Innovative geometries including Tightly Folded Resonator (TFR)
slab lasers are proving to be very useful. (Apparently the patent for
this design was issued in 1972 and has now run out!).

	Quasi-Phase-Matching and other such schemes for frequency
doubling might help us achieve blue/green/red displays. 

	:-) Fireflies produce light with 98% energy efficiency! :-)

	KENT CAREY (HP Labs)

	Personal relationships are very important when it comes to
collaborative research and technology transfer between R and D.
Main friction areas include Patent rights, publication credits,
etc. Kent noted that patents aren't usually that lucrative and being
too possessive/fussy might be a stupid thing to do. 

	The Japanese have a significant share of Optoelectronic
research funding targeted at components. [I missed the conclusion
he drew from this]

	NILOY DUTTA (AT&T)

	There are two different forms of communications :
		Communication between machines
			  &
		Communication between humans and machines.

	There is more money in the latter category than the former. 
Human-machine interfaces are important.

	Niloy gave a list of state-of-the art device performances:

LASERS
350 GHz mode-locked laser [ integrated CPM?]
Transform-limited soliton source @ 8 GHz
22 GHz DFB laser for 10 Gb/s transmitters

DETECTORS
100 GHz p-i-n photodetectors
90 GHz superlattice photodetectors [what wavelength/s?]

GaAs MSM detectors with 8k FETs, @  ~ Gb/s 
InGaAs p-i-n / MODFET preamps - 32 channels, ~ Gb/s
InGaAs p-i-n / HBTs ~5Gb/s

0.3 micron geometries in Si-CMOS can eable 1.5 to 2 Gb/s operation.

Polymer waveguides have been used to make 40 x 40 star couplers on
Si-substrates.

Integrated DFB laser-modulator units will soon be coming out, operating
at 23 Gb/s

Tranceivers, consisting of receiver/laser/power monitor will be more
common in the future. 

Siliconization of PICs (Photonic Integrated Circuits) and OEICs ( Opto-
electronic ICs) is very important.


	TINGYE Li (AT&T)

Optical Fiber Amps are responsible for the the latest dramatic improvements
in communications capabilities using optical fibers. 2.5Gb/s networks
could soon become standard. 

	External modulation of laser light is important, due to the
chirp problems with direct modulation of semiconductor lasers. the
future is in  Photonic ICs (PICs).

	We could have integrated Laser/External Modulator PICs, driven
by Silicon circuitry. Monolithic waveguide integration to form star 
couplers and wavelength multiplexers, etc., is important.

	ELSA GARMIRE (University of Southern California)

We need to look more closely at applications of Optoelectronics in
basic infrastructure, such as transportation, energy, housing, etc.

There are also applications in health care [off-hand, a simple 
glucose sensor comes to mind - you stick your finger in the device,
and differential absorption at two wavelengths gives the reading -
this is probably the kind of application Elsa had in mind].

In manufacturing, Robotics, Automation and Sensing are three key areas
where there will be applications. Quoting someone, Elsa said that to
be popular, an optoelectronic device should satisfy the 2x2x2 condition-
installed in 2 min., understood by a 2-yr old and cost $2 :-) 

She said that there are a large number of commercial applications that
have to be explored, and these are important in a post-Cold War era.

	DMITRI PSALTIS (Caltech)

Optical interconnects/processors using SLMs will be important

	Smart Pixel Arrays include Silicon substrates with either
Liquid Crystals, GaAs or PLZT. Modulators and Surface Emitting Lasers
are also implementable in III-V material systems.

	The future of Optical Computing will be mostly in the form of
special purpose technology - Custom designs will dominate.
	
	To be able to implement optical logic, need a huge technological
base. Standards for architecture and protocols need to be developed. It
will be good if there could be a central group overseeing this, and also
providing access to foundries, packaging facilities, etc. This will
allow fast development of prototypes and help hasten research. To this
end, there is now a consortium for Optical and Optoelectronic
technologies in Computing. This is a US + Japanese venture and is 
headed by Ravindra Athale of George Mason University.

	ROBERT WAARTS (Spectra Diode Labs)

There's several new wavelength ranges of interest in diode lasers.

		2-3 microns :
				eyesafe operation
				optical sensing
				surgery (bio-med applications)

		Red	:	medical applications
				pumping new solid-state materials
	
		Blue/Green :	Optical storage, printing

The blue/green lasers could be direct or frequency doubled NIR. Tunable
diode lasers and diode-pumped solid state lasers will be useful.

	Incoherent High Power is useful for 
				solid-state laser pumping
				welding/cutting

	Coherent High Power is needed for:
			
				Space communications
				compact laser system applications

				(replacing diode pumped solid-state)

	We are heading towards increased complexity of laser chips.
Need an addressable array for printing/ data-storage and readout.
Also need to be able to do optical switching in LAN applications.

=======================================================================

The above opinions are subject to my interpretational errors, so 
neither the speakers nor I bear any responsibility for anything included
in this posting! :-) The meeting wasn't fully coherent, but provided a
diverse field of views; conclusions are left to you. 

Oh, BTW, there was a brief discussion session after the panel members
had their say... There was a mutual agreement between quite a few 
present that basic research has to be funded by the government, since
industry cannot afford to fund long-term projects, at least the way
the industry is organized in the US. It's tragic that industry should
be in a recession while NSF funding is cut - even the limited basic
research in the industry might be affected, and you probably know
how important NSF-type funding is...

Hope this was of some use to you. Do air your views on where
Optoelectronics is heading (or should head in the future). Its important
to keep track of the overall picture while being involved in our
specialized research interests. 

Thanks for reading through these 200 odd lines!

						- swami srinivasan

========================================================================
swaminathan srinivasan
center for high tech materials
eece, university of new mexico
albuquerque, nm 87131, usa.		swami@chtm.eece.unm.edu

(505) - 277 0239 / 266 4349
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Newsgroups: sci.optics