Perspectives and Future Trends

Abstract

A rebuilding of the information infrastructure is taking place to give instantaneous availability of data, voice, and video. This revolution of the Information Age is being gated more by the introduction of new materials and components, than by the design of systems, software, and networks. Electrons transmitted through metal wires have an information carrying capacity limited by the resistance and capacitance of the cable and the terminating electronic circuits. Photons transmitted through optical waveguides are capacity limited only by the dispersion of the medium. Each network node that requires transduction from photonics to electronics limits the performance and affordability of the network. The key frontier is the large scale integration and manufacturing of photonic components to enable the distribution of high bit rate optical streams to the individual information appliance. Microphotonics is the platform for large scale, planar integration of optical signal processing capability. The push towards smarter, ever-denser on-chip photonic networks drives a convergence of micro-, nano-, and plasmo-photonic techniques for progressively smaller devices and for improved functionality of modulators, switches, emitters, detectors, waveguides, resonators, tapers, and filters. This convergence includes composite components: monolithic integration of microstrip waveguides, 2D and 3D photonic-crystal elements, and metal/Si plasmon-optics that utilize buried or surface-mounted 2D arrays of metal stripes or nanodots. The development of optical interconnect devices including waveguides will proceed through a synergetic collaboration among material and processing technologies, design and fabrication of integrated optoelectronics, and optoelectronic packaging technology. This chapter will provide a brief review on perspectives and future trends of optical waveguides and their applications. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.