Integrated Optics: Guiding and manipulating light for device applications

Study of light and its associated phenomenon has always been a subject of great curiosity. The light behaves as wave and also as particle called photon. It has four primary parameters namely intensity, frequency or wavelength, polarisation and phase. It travels in a straight line unless the space-time itself is curved or the path is altered by means of external optical components. 

Integrated optics is the miniaturised version of bulk optical functional blocks where the light is confined and guided in optical waveguides and simultaneously manipulated to perform certain tasks. The light can be made to branch out from a single source in a tree like guided structure to multiple ports, or the intensity can be modulated at GHz frequency, or simply made to spread its spectrum to selectively pick a single wavelength with narrow line width for fiber optic communication applications. There are certain applications which also demand phase modulation of light. All these functionalities are possible to achieve using integrated optic devices.

The talk is aimed towards presenting a simplified version of integrated optics to the audience and explain some of the commonly used integrated optic device applications.