An optical switch structure includes a substrate, a first electrical contact, a first material having a first conductivity type electrically connected to the first electrical contact, a second material having a second conductivity type coupled to the first material, and a second electrical contact electrically connected to the second material. The optical switch structure also includes a waveguide structure disposed between the first electrical contact and the second electrical contact and comprising a waveguide core coupled to the substrate and including a first material characterized by a first index of refraction and a first electro-optic coefficient and a waveguide cladding at least partially surrounding the waveguide core and including a second material characterized by a second index of refraction and a second electro-optic. The first index of refraction is greater than the second index of refraction the first electro-optic coefficient is less than the second electro-optic coefficient

An optical filter device may include an optical waveguide having an input and an output, and a plurality of first optical resonators optically coupled to the optical waveguide along a length thereof between the input and the output. The optical filter device may further include at least one second optical resonator optically coupled to the plurality of first optical resonators opposite the optical waveguide.

An integrated-optics MEMS-actuated beam-steering system is disclosed, wherein the beam-steering system includes a lens and a programmable vertical coupler array having a switching network and an array of vertical couplers, where the switching network can energize of the vertical couplers such that it efficiently emits the light into free-space. The lens collimates the light received from the energized vertical coupler and directs the output beam along a propagation direction determined by the position of the energized vertical coupler within the vertical-coupler array. In some embodiments, the vertical coupler is configured to correct an aberration of the lens. In some embodiments, more than one vertical coupler can be energized to enable steering of multiple output beams. In some embodiments, the switching network is non-blocking.

A fast optical switch can be fabricated/constructed, when vanadium dioxide (VO.sub.2) ultra thin-film or a cluster of vanadium dioxide particles (less than 0.5 microns in diameter) embedded in an ultra thin-film of a polymeric material or in a mesh of metal nanowires is activated by either an electrical pulse (a voltage pulse or a current pulse) or a light pulse just to induce rapid insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT) in vanadium dioxide ultra thin-film or vanadium dioxide particles embedded in an ultra thin-film of a polymeric material or in a mesh of metal nanowires. The applications of such a fast optical switch for an on-Demand optical add-drop subsystem, integrating with or without a wavelength converter are also described.

Electro-optic devices for classical and quantum microwave photonics are provided. In various embodiments, a device comprises: a waveguide; a first ring resonator; a second ring resonator, the second ring resonator evanescently coupled to the first ring resonator and to the waveguide; a first pair of electrodes, one of the first pair of electrodes disposed within the first ring resonator and the other of the first pair of electrodes disposed without the first ring resonator; a second pair of electrodes, one of the second pair of electrodes disposed within the second ring resonator and the other of the second pair of electrodes disposed without the second ring resonator; a microwave source electrically coupled to the first and second pairs of electrodes; a bias port electrically coupled to the first and second pairs of electrodes and configured to sweep a frequency band.

An apparatus comprising an optical filter located on a substrate. The optical filter including an optical splitter configured to receive an input light and an interferometer having two waveguide arms having different optical path-lengths from each other. The waveguide arms configured to receive the input light from the optical splitter. At least a portion of one of the two waveguide arms has a narrower core width than a wider core width of the other waveguide arm. The waveguide arm with the longest waveguide portion having the narrower core width has the longest total physical path-length of the two waveguide arms. At least one of the two waveguide arms having a set of discrete waveguide portions, the discrete waveguide portions of the set being connected by optical switches which are configured to tunably select from a plurality of different physical path-lengths through the discrete waveguide portions of the at least one waveguide arm.

An optical modulator for switching an optical signal of wavelength λ from one waveguide-electrode to another requires that both waveguide-electrodes be made of an electrically conducting material. Also, a non-conducting cross-coupling material fills a slot along a length L between the waveguide-electrodes. Importantly, cross-coupling material in the slot provides a separation distance x.sub.c between the waveguide-electrodes that is less than 0.35 microns. When a switching voltage V.sub.π is selectively applied to the waveguide-electrodes, a strong uniform electric field E is created within the cross-coupling material. Thus, E modulates the cross-coupling length of the optical signal by an increment ±Δ each time it passes back and forth through the cross-coupling material along the length L. Thus, after an N number of cross-coupling length cycles along the length L, when NΔ equals one cross-coupling length, the optical signal is switched from one waveguide-electrode to the other.

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 electro-optical converter that converts an electric signal to an optical signal. An optical signal is dragged from one optical channel to another optical channel using exciton polaritons that are generated in a layer that is adjacent the optical channels. The exciton polaritons are generated in response to an electrical signal which thereby results in the selective production of the optical signal.

The present invention discloses a directional photonic coupler (1) with independent tuning of the coupling factor and phase difference. The coupler comprises: two waveguides (4, 5), with respective propagation constants “β.sub.1, β.sub.2”, on which phase shifters (6, 7) configured to modify the propagation coefficients are located. Both phase shifters are configured such that, by independent modification (differential or unique) of the propagation coefficients, the power coupling factor (K) between an input signal (2a or 2b) and the output signals (3b and 3a) is tuned, and by equal and simultaneous modification of the propagation coefficients, the common phase difference of the optical output signals (3 a, 3b) is tuned. A third phase shifter (15) can be used to retune the phase difference at the input/output of one of the waveguides. The coupler is of particular interest in PIC circuits, coupled resonators, Mach-Zehnder interferometers and mesh structures.