A method and apparatus is provided for control of plural optical phase shifters in an optical device, such as a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer switch. Drive signal magnitude is set using a level setting input and is used for operating both phase shifters, which may have similar characteristics due to co-location and co-manufacture. A device state control signal selects which of the phase shifters receives the drive signal. One or more switches may be used to route the drive signal to the selected phase shifter. Separate level control circuits and state control circuits operating at different speeds may be employed. When the phase shifters are asymmetrically conducting (e.g. carrier injection) phase shifters, a bi-polar drive circuit can be employed. In this case, the phase shifters can be connected in reverse-parallel, and the drive signal polarity can be switchably reversed in order to drive a selected one of the phase shifters.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar dielectric lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes an output coupler, such as a grating or photonic crystal, that guides the collimated beams in different directions out of the lens plane. A switch matrix controls which input port is illuminated and hence the in-plane propagation direction of the collimated beam. And a tunable light source changes the wavelength to control the angle at which the collimated beam leaves the plane of the substrate. The device is very efficient, in part because the input port (and thus in-plane propagation direction) can be changed by actuating only log.sub.2 N of the N switches in the switch matrix. It can also be much simpler, smaller, and cheaper because it needs fewer control lines than a conventional optical phased array with the same resolution.

An eye tracker having a first waveguide for propagating illumination light along a first waveguide path and propagating image light reflected from at least one surface of an eye along a second waveguide path. At least one grating lamina for deflecting the illumination light out of the first waveguide path towards the eye and deflecting the image light into the second waveguide path towards a detector is disposed adjacent an optical surface of the waveguide.

An integrated optical beam steering system is configured in three stages to provide beam steering for image light from an imager (e.g., laser, light emitting diode, or other light source) to downstream elements in a display system such as an exit pupil expander (EPE) in a mixed-reality computing device. The first stage includes a multi-level cascaded array of optical switches that are configurable to spatially route image light over a first dimension of a two-dimensional (2D) field of view (FOV) of the display system. The second waveguiding stage transfers the image light along preformed waveguides to a collimator in the third stage which is configured to collimate the image light along the first dimension of the FOV (e.g., horizontal). The waveguiding and collimating stages may be implemented using lightweight photonic crystal nanostructures.

An electro-holographic light field generator device is disclosed. The light field generator device has an optical substrate with a waveguide face and an exit face. One or more surface acoustic wave (SAW) optical modulator devices are included within each light field generator device. The SAW devices each include a light input, a waveguide, and a SAW transducer, all configured for guided mode confinement of input light within the waveguide. A leaky mode deflection of a portion of the waveguided light, or diffractive light, impinges upon the exit face. Multiple output optics at the exit face are configured for developing from each of the output optics a radiated exit light from the diffracted light for at least one of the waveguides. An RF controller is configured to control the SAW devices to develop the radiated exit light as a three-dimensional output light field with horizontal parallax and compatible with observer vertical motion.

An integrated optical beam steering system is configured in three stages to provide beam steering for image light from an imager (e.g., laser, light emitting diode, or other light source) to downstream elements in a display system such as an exit pupil expander (EPE) in a mixed-reality computing device. The first stage includes a multi-level cascaded array of optical switches that are configurable to spatially route image light over a first dimension of a two-dimensional (2D) field of view (FOV) of the display system. The second waveguiding stage transfers the image light along preformed waveguides to a collimator in the third stage which is configured to collimate the image light along the first dimension of the FOV (e.g., horizontal). The waveguiding and collimating stages may be implemented using lightweight photonic crystal nanostructures.

An eye tracker having a first waveguide for propagating illumination light along a first waveguide path and propagating image light reflected from at least one surface of an eye along a second waveguide path. At least one grating lamina for deflecting the illumination light out of the first waveguide path towards the eye and deflecting the image light into the second waveguide path towards a detector is disposed adjacent an optical surface of the waveguide.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar dielectric lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes an output coupler, such as a grating or photonic crystal, that guides the collimated beams in different directions out of the lens plane. A switch matrix controls which input port is illuminated and hence the in-plane propagation direction of the collimated beam. And a tunable light source changes the wavelength to control the angle at which the collimated beam leaves the plane of the substrate. The device is very efficient, in part because the input port (and thus in-plane propagation direction) can be changed by actuating only log.sub.2 N of the N switches in the switch matrix. It can also be much simpler, smaller, and cheaper because it needs fewer control lines than a conventional optical phased array with the same resolution.

Photonic data routing in optical networks is expected overcome the limitations of electronic routers with respect to data rate, latency, and energy consumption. However photonics-based routers suffer from dynamic power consumption, and non-simultaneous usage of multiple wavelength channels when microrings are deployed and are sizable in footprint. Here we show a design for the first hybrid photonic-plasmonic, non-blocking, broadband 55 router based on 3-waveguide silicon photonic-plasmonic 22 switches. The compactness of the router (footprint <200 m.sup.2) results in a short optical propagation delay (0.4 ps) enabling high data capacity up to 2 Tbps. The router has an average energy consumption ranging from 0.11.0 fJ/bit depending on either DWDM or CDWM operation, enabled by the low electrical capacitance of the switch. The total average routing insertion loss of 2.5 dB is supported via an optical mode hybridization deployed inside the 22 switches, which minimizes the coupling losses between the photonic and plasmonic sections of the router. The router's spectral bandwidth resides in the S, C and L bands and exceeds 100 nm supporting WDM applications since no resonance feature are required. Moreover, this hybrid photonic-plasmonic switch design is also suitable for 3 up to a few dozens of routing ports by simply cascading our 22 switch with a specific pattern. Taken together this novel optical router combines multiple design features, all required in next generation high data-throughput optical networks and computing systems.

An optical waveguide circuit device includes: an optical waveguide circuit including a cladding layer formed on a substrate and made from silica-based glass, and an optical waveguide formed within the cladding layer and made from silica-based glass; heaters formed over the cladding layer and the optical waveguide and configured to heat the optical waveguide; wiring line electrode layers formed over the cladding layer, each of the wiring line electrode layers being coupled to a corresponding heater of the heaters and configured to allow electrical power to be supplied to the coupled heater; and an insulating layer covering the cladding layer, the heaters, and the wiring line electrode layers. The wiring line electrode layers adjacent to each other in a plan view are formed in different wiring layers. The wiring line electrode layers adjacent to each other in the same wiring layer are spaced by at least a predetermined distance.