Advanced Optoelectronic Devices

Optoelectronics will undoubtedly playamajor role in the applied sciences of the next century. This is due to the fact that optoelectronics holds the key to future communication developments which require high data transmission rates and of a extremely large bandwidths. For example, an optical fiber having a diameter few micrometers has a bandwidth of 50 THz, where an impressive number of channels having high bit data rates can be simultaneously propagated. At present, optical data streams of 100 Gb/s are being tested for use in the near future. Optoelectronics has advanced considerably in the last few years. This is due to the fact that major developments in the area of semiconductors, such as hetero­ structures based on III-V compounds or mesoscopic structures at the nanometer scale such as quantum weHs, quantum wires and quantum dots, have found robust applications in the generation, modulation, detection and processing of light. Major developments in glass techniques have also dramaticaHy improved the performance of optoelectronic devices based on optical fibers. The optical fiber doped with rare-earth materials has aHowed the amplification of propagating light, compensating its own los ses and even generating coherent light in fiber lasers. The UV irradiation of fibers has been used to inscribe gratings of hundreds of nanometer size inside the fiber, generating a large class of devices used for modulation, wavelength selection and other applications.

Advanced Optoelectronic Devices gives the first unified presentation of the major developments in this field, both in terms of their physical background and with respect to applications. It covers devices based on the properties of quantum wells and fiber optics together with their applications in optical communications and signal processing. It also includes a comprehensive mathematical treatment and state-of-the-art presentation of the latest research in applied optoelectronics and semiconductor physics. The two different and complementary physical theories that describe optoelectronic devices, namely the electromagnetic field theory and quantum mechanics, are treated jointly in such a way as to reveal links and analogies wherever possible. This provides a better understanding of the basic processes. Therefore, the book is not simply a catalogue of different exotic devices but a presentation of a great variety of devices based on the same, or similar, physical phenomena.