MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MTL VLSI SEMINAR

Tuesday
September 27, 1994
3:30 Reception
4:00 Lecture

Room 34-101
50 Vassar Street

Sensors based on GaAs Integrated Optical Circuits

Hans P. Zappe
Paul Scherrer Institute
Zurich, Switzerland

Integrated optical circuits based on III-V materials may be beneficially applied to the field of optical sensors. The ability to fabricate active optical elements, namely lasers, in addition to waveguides, detectors, and modulators, plus the prospects for integration of these onto a single substrate, open numerous opportunities for the manufacture of monolithically integrated, fully self-contained optical sensor circuits. Improvements in robustness, functionality and miniaturization with respect to bulk optical approaches are expected.

We discuss the technology, devices and circuits required for the fabrication of GaAs-based integrated optical sensors. Chemical, biological and physical sensing configurations will be presented, showing the flexibility inherent in this technology. The development of clinical and environmental applications and prospects for hybridization or integration with Si-based technologies will be outlined.