Electro-optic devices utilizing a sapphire substrate
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
InventorRichard A. Soref
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Abstract
The present invention provides improved optical switching and modulation through the use of electrically assisted opto-optical devices and optically assisted electro-optical devices. The modulator and switches 34, 60 are guided wave devices comprising silicon channel waveguides on a sapphire substrate. An optically transparent sapphire substrate 12, 42, 62 is used to allow transmission of short wavelength light through the substrate to operate upon the silicon channels in the area of p-n junctions. This permits the construction of dual control electro-optical devices. These guided wave devices operate on light at wavelengths of 1.3 microns or higher.
Claims20
An electro-optical device comprising:
- a transparent sapphire substrate;
- a silicon layer positioned on said substrate and formed into an optical waveguide;
- a p-n junction formed in said silicon waveguide for selectively changing the refractive index of said waveguide;
- a current source for supplying activating energy to said p-n junction;
- and
- an optical source positioned for providing a beam of light that is transmitted through said sapphire substrate and into said silicon waveguide in order to change the refractive index of the waveguide.
An electro-optical coupler comprising:
- a transparent sapphire substrate;
- a silicon layer positioned on said substrate and formed into two optical channel waveguides having a coupling region comprising parallel optical channels and a silicon signal transfer area there between;
- a p-n junction formed in said silicon channel waveguides for selectively changing the refractive index of said waveguides;
- a current source for supplying activating energy to said p-n junction;
- and
- an optical source positioned for providing a beam of light that is transmitted through said sapphire substrate and into said silicon waveguides in order to change the coupling coefficient of said channel waveguides to selectively allow the passage of optical signals between said channel waveguides.
An electro-optical switch comprising:
- a transparent sapphire substrate;
- a silicon layer positioned on said substrate and formed into crossing optical channel waveguides wherein said optical channel waveguides merge and then separate;
- a p-n junction formed at the merger of said optical channel waveguides for selectively changing the refractive index of the silicon layer at the junction of said optical waveguides;
- a current source for supplying activating energy to said p-n junction;
- and
- an optical source positioned for providing a beam of light that is transmitted through said sapphire substrate and into said silicon optical waveguides in order to selectively change the refractive index of the waveguides.
The electro-optical device of claim 16 wherein the beam of light is of a wavelength in the range of 400 nm to 900 nm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.