IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. E-23, NO. 2, MAY 1980

J. C. Palais, Notes on Fiber Optical Communications. Tempe,AZ: Arizona State Univ., Eng. Copy Service, Jan. 1979.M. K. Barnowski, Fundamentals of Optical FYber Communica-tions. New York: Academic, 1976.R. L. Gallawa, A User's Manual For Optical Waveguide Communi-cations. NTIS, U. S. Department of Commerce, 1976.D. Marcuse, Light Transmission Optics. New York: Van NostrandReinhold, 1972.D. Marcuse, Theory ofDielectric Optical Waveguides. New York:Academic, 1974.J. A. Arnaud, Beam and Fiber Optics. New York: Academic,1976.M. S. Sodha and A. K. Ghatak, Inhomogeneous Optical Wave-guides. New York: Plenum, 1977.

Joseph C. Paais (A'59-S'62-M'65-SM'70) was born in Portland, ME,on February 2, 1936. He received the B.S.E.E. degree from the Uni-versity of Arizona, Tucson. in 1969. and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees

from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in1962 and 1964, respectively.He is presently a professor in the Department

of Electrical and Computer Engineering atArizona State University, Tempe, AZ, wherehe has been a member of the faculty since1964. From 1959 to 1960 he worked as aMicrowave Engineer for Motorola Corporation.During the summers of 1966 and 1967 heworked at the Stanford Research Institute. In1967 he was awarded a Ford Foundation

Residency in Engineering Practice. As part of this award, he spent ayear with Sylvania's Electro-Optics Organization. In 1973 he was aVisiting Associate Professor at the Technion-lsrael Institute of Tech-nology. In 1974 he was presented the Annual Achievement Award bythe Phoenix section of the IEEE. He has been a consultant to severalfirms including Sperry Flight Systems and Sylvania. He has done re-search and published in the areas of antennas, microwaves, holography,and fiber optics and has presented short courses on Fiber Optical Com-munications at a number of locations throughout the United States.Dr. Palais is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Pi Mu Epsilon, Eta Kappa Nu,

Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi.

A Course in Integrated OpticsTHOMAS K. GAYLORD, SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE

Abstract-A beginning-level graduate survey course in integated op-

tics taught in the School of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Insti-tute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, is described. The goal of this courseis to provide students with a broad elementary knowledge of guidedwave optics, devices, and systems.

INTRODUCTIONINTEGRATED optics is based on the transmission of opticalenergy through thin film and fiber optic waveguides. Inte-

grated optical circuits typically include the optical source(s),dielectric waveguide(s), modulator(s), and detector(s). Thus"integrated optics" is generally synonymous with guided waveoptics, devices, and systems. Complete monolithic integrationis seldom achieved at the current state of development. Inte-grated optical circuits potentially still offer many advantages.Some of these advantages, such as miniaturization, low cost,high reliability, low power consumption, and uniformity ofdevices are directly analogous to the advantages obtained byrealizing discrete electronic circuits in integrated electroniccircuit form. However, probably more significant advantagesare the very large bandwidths, the immunity to electromag-netic interference, and the wide range of possible devices.Integrated optics is very much in its infancy at the present.

A number of complete systems have been fabricated including

Manuscript received July 30, 1979; revised December 7, 1979.The author is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Georgia

Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332.

A-D converters, RF spectrum analyzers, correlators, and multi-channel digital data processors. These systems, however, are

still being developed and do not have the performance capa-

bilities that are envisioned for future integrated optical systems.Engineers are needed now and will be needed in the future towork in integrated optics, and it is therefore important to in-troduce this topic into educational programs.

New concepts and areas of activity often enter the curriculumin the following manner. A new subject area is frequently firstconfined to the domain of a seminar course involving a fewfaculty and graduate students in closely related research fields.As the subject grows in importance and becomes better under-stood, it progresses to become a regular course-first at the grad-uate level and then, if its importance continues to grow, at theundergraduate level. This is certainly not true in all cases, butit does represent a normal sequence of events. In the case ofintegrated optics, it was felt that it would be appropriate tooffer a regular lecture course at the graduate level. Conse-quently, a three-credit-hour graduate-level survey course was

introduced at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

COURSE GOALSThe goal of this integrated optics course is to provide stu-

dents with a broad elementary knowledge of guided wave op-

tics, devices, and systems. The survey nature of the course isconsistent with this very general goal and the wide spectrum oftopics, including fiber optics, covered in the course (see course

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content). However, the primary emphasis throughout thecourse is on single-mode systems, or systems in which only afew modes are allowed to propagate. Thus the coverage offiber optics is intentionally limited and excludes many detailsof common multimode fiber communications systems that areof great current importance. A separate upper level under-graduate three-credit-hour course on fiber optics allows thestudent to specialize in fiber optics and fiber optics communi-cation systems if they desire to do so.

COURSE STRUCTUREPrerequisitesThe prerequisite for this course is graduate standing in elec-

trical engineering or its equivalent. Therefore students in thecourse are expected to have completed the undergraduatesequence of electromagnetics courses. The course is takenprimarily by electrical engineering graduate students, butgraduate students in physics and undergraduate electricalengineering and physics honor students also enroll. Most ofthe students enrolled in the course are in areas of specializa-tion other than electro-optics, though a number will bespecifically doing thesis research in optics.

GradingGrades are determined on the basis of student performance

in three areas. These areas, along with their weighting per-centages, are: homework problems (20 percent), two exams(40 percent), and a device or system term paper (40 percent).The importance of the term paper is strongly emphasized bythis grading scheme. Due to the large number of importanttopics to be covered, time limitations dictate a limited depthof coverage of individual topics. The term paper, on the otherhand, allows a needed in-depth coverage of a specific integratedoptics device or system. This is deemed to be necessary 1)to impart a detailed practical grasp of the integrated opticsfundamentals being discussed and 2) to provide a realisticopportunity for the students to practice and to improve theircommunication skills. Term paper topics are selected by thestudents and then approved by the instructor. A section-by-section detailed outline is required during the fourth week ofthe quarter. Term paper topics are generally confined to acurrent device or system application of integrated optics ratherthan to a treatment of a fundamental physical principle oreffect. It is felt that the basic science aspects of integratedoptics should be largely covered in class and that the studentinvestigations should be detailed engineering-oriented studiesof practical devices and systems. Examples of student-selectedtopics are listed in Appendix A. At the end of the quarter,during the scheduled final exam time, students make fifteen-minute presentations of their term papers before the entireclass. A five-minute question period is allowed following eachpaper. This practice in oral communication skills is oftendreaded but is usually found to be a very valuable and reward-ing experience by the students.

Instructional ResourcesA new subject area usually has a limited number of textbooks

available for use. Integrated optics is no exception in this

regard. Three primary books are available. Of these books, one[1] is a compilation of reprints that is now out-of-date andanother [2] is a series of disconnected chapters using incon-sistent notation. The third book [3] is edited by T. Tamirand is a carefully prepared volume covering most aspects of inte-grated optics. This book was selected as the textbook for thecourse. It has a good subject index and an especially valuablelisting of over 850 references to original articles. Both of thesefeatures are very much needed for the further study requiredby the term papers.Other instructional resources exist in the form of very useful

review articles [4] -[12]. These are helpful in obtaining alter-native perspectives on various topics.As in any rapidly expanding subject, a large amount of infor-

mation must be drawn directly from recent papers. This iscertainly true for the integrated optics course. Most helpfulin this respect are the Digests of the TopicalMeetings [131-[17], sponsored by the Optical Society of America (OSA)and the IEEE, and the proceedings of conferences [18] -[19]sponsored by the Society of Photo-Optical InstrumentationEngineers (SPIE). These documents contain articles coveringa large fraction of the current work in integrated optics. Theseproceedings are very useful to the students in the preparationof their term papers and are kept on reserve in the library.The course described here is a lecture course. A limited

number of classroom demonstrations are presented. A numberofinteresting integrated optics experimnents and demonstrationsthat can be implemented at low cost are described in the paperby T. E. Batchman and J. W. Mahoney [20].

COURSE CONTENTA detailed topical outline for the integrated optics course,

with the approximate number of class hours in parentheses isas follows:

Waveguides (6 hrs.)Slab waveguide:Ray optics treatmentTotal internal reflectionGoos-Haenchen shift

Wave optics treatmentModes of waveguideRadiation, substrate, waveguide, and evanescentmodes.

Cylindrical waveguide:Step-index fiber (exact e/m solution)

Characteristic equationStrongly-guided solutionsWeakly-guided solutionsTE, TM, HE, EH modes

Graded-index fiber (numerical solution).Channel waveguide:Waveguide modes.

Graded-index waveguides.

Fiber Optics (4 hrs.)Dispersion:Intermodal dispersionMaterial dispersion.

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Splicing methods:Alignment rodsSnug fit tubeFusionV-grooved chipHolographic.

Splicing losses:IntrinsicArea, NA, profile mismatch

ExtrinsicSeparation, angular, lateral

Branch couplersTee and star couplers.

Available fiber cables:Siecor, General Cable, ITT.

Practical loss calculations.

Grating Diffraction (3 hrs.)Holographic gratings.Thin grating diffraction.Thick grating diffraction.

Air-to-Guide Couplers (1 hr.)Transverse couplers.Prism couplers.Tapered couplers.Grating couplers.

Modulators, Deflectors, and Switches (3 hrs.)Electroabsorption devices.Electro-optic devices.Acousto-optic devices.Magneto-optic devices.

Thin Film Components (2 hrs.)Grating filters:Uniform gratings

FiltersChirped gratingsMultiplexersDemultiplexers.

Directional couplers:Tapered directional couplersAP-reversal directional coupler.

Lenses:FresnelGeodesicLuneberg.

Light Sources (2 hrs.)Light Emitting Diodes:Edge emittersSurface emitters.

Injection lasers:Heterostructure lasersStripe-contact laserDual-beam double cavity laserDistributed feedback laserDistributed Bragg reflector laser.

Detectors (1 hr.)P-I-N diodes.Avalanche photodiodes.Other devices

Integrated Optical Devices (2 hrs.)Electro-optic phased array deflector:Slab waveguideChannel waveguide.

Bistable integrated optical elements:Fabry-Perot two-port switchDirectional coupler four-port switch

Phase conjugation devices.

Integrated Optical Systems (5 hrs.)Monolithically integrated laser and amplifier.Integrated optical interferometric A-D converter.Integrated optical electro-optic-deflector A-D converter.Integrated optical optical logic circuits.Variable delay lines.Raman fiber laser.RF spectrum analyzer.Acousto-optic real-time waveform convolver.Acousto-optic two-crystal waveform correlator.Acousto-optic memory correlator.Programmable integrated optical switch.Integrated optical four-port fiber switch.Multichannel digital data processor.Integrated optical receivers

Slab waveguide to CCD arrayChannel waveguide to CCD array.

Fabrication (1 hr.)Photolithography.Diffusion:

In-diffusionOut-diffusion.

EVALUATIONA quantitative evaluation ofa course's effectiveness is usually

difficult to obtain. It is especially difficult to separate the eval-uation of the instructor from the evaluation of the course, soextreme care must be taken in the interpretation of the data.However, meaningful information can be obtained from ques-tionnaires if appropriate questions are posed and if the re-spondents remain anonymous. A "teacher effectiveness eval-uation form" questionnaire has been developed at GeorgiaTech and is available for use throughout the Institute. Thismethod of evaluation has been used for the integrated opticscourse. From the tabulated results, the "overall course value"has been rated either very good or outstanding by 93.8 percentof the students. The consensus of the responses indicates thatthe course goals, structure, and content are acceptable to thestudents.

CONCLUSIONSGuided-wave optics, devices, and systems are becoming

increasingly important. To provide formal education in

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this area, a graduate-level integrated optics course has beendescribed here. This course has been classroom tested, andonly positive indications of course effectiveness have beenobtained.

APPENDIX AEXAMPLE TERM PAPER TOPICS SELECTED BY STUDENTS

IN INTEGRATED OPTICSDistributed Feedback LasersIntegrated Optical Multichannel Digital Data ProcessorIntegrated Optical Logic DevicesTapered Waveguide CouplersIntegrated Bistable Electro-Optic Fabry-Perot DevicesThin Film Electro-Optic ModulatorsTunable Optical Directional Coupler FiltersIntegrated Optical RF Spectrum AnalyzerIntegrated Optical Acousto-Optic DeflectorAcousto-Optic ConvolverProgrammable Optical Guided Wave DevicesHeterostructure Lasers in Integrated Optical SystemsGuided-Wave Optical Logic CircuitsThin Film Bragg SwitchIntegrated Optical Bistable Interferometer-Type DevicesGrating Waveguide CouplersIon Implanted Integrated Optics DevicesIntegrated Optical Communications RepeaterIntegrated Optical CCD ReceiversWavelength Division Multiplexing in Integrated OpticsChirped Grating Wavelength DemultiplexersIntegrated Optical Electro-Optic A-D Converter using ChannelWaveguide Modulators

Integrated Optical Electro-Optic Deflector A-D ConverterAcousto-Optic Two Crystal and Memory CorrelatorsIntegrated Optical Data Storage Elements

REFERENCES

[1]

[2]

[3]

D. Marcuse, Ed., Integrated Optics (35 reprinted papers). NewYork: IEEE Press, 1972.M. K. Barnoski, Ed., Introduction to Integrated Optics. NewYork: Plenum, 1974.T. Tamir, Ed., Integrated Optics, vol. 7 of Topics in AppliedPhysics. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1975 (contains 558 refer-ences); also-, Integrated Optics, vol. 7 of Topics in Applied

Physics. 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1979 (contains871 references).

[4] E. M. Conwell, "Integrated optics," Physics Today, vol. 29, pp.48-59, May 1976.

[5] J. E. Goell and R. D. Standley, "Integrated optical circuits,"Proc. IEEE, vol. 58, pp. 1504-1512, Oct. 1970.

[6] H. Kogelnik, "An introduction to integrated optics," IEEE Trans.Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-23, pp. 2-16, Jan. 1975.

[7] S. E. Miller, "A survey of integrated optics," IEEE J. QuantumElectron., vol. QE-8, pp. 199-206, Feb. 1972.

[81 H. F. Taylor and A. Yariv, "Guided wave optics," Proc. IEEE,vol. 62, pp. 1044-1060, Aug. 1974.

[9] P. K. Tien, "Integrated optics," Scientific Amer., vol. 230, pp.28-35, Apr. 1974.

[10] -, "Integrated optics and new wave phenomena in opticalwaveguides," Reviews ofModern Physics, vol. 49, pp. 361-420,Apr. 1977 (contains 570 references).

[11] A. Yariv, "Components for integrated optics," Laser Focus, vol.8, pp. 40-42, Dec. 1972.

[12] -,"Guided-wave optics," Scientific Amer., vol. 240, pp. 64-72, Jan. 1979.

[13] Integrated Optics-Guided Waves, Materials, and Devices. Wash-ington: Optical Society of America, 1972. Dig. tech. paperspresented at Topical Meeting Integrated Optics-Guided Waves,Materials, and Devices, Feb. 7-10, 1972, Las Vegas, NV.

[141 Integrated Optics. Washington: Optical Society of America,1974. (Dig. tech. papers presented at Topical Meeting IntegratedOptics, Jan. 21-24, 1974, New Orleans, LA.)

[15] Integrated Optics. Washington: Optical Society of America,1976. (Dig. tech. papers presented at Topical Meeting IntegratedOptics, Jan. 12-14, 1976, Salt Lake City, UT.)

[16] Integratedand Guided Wave Optics. Washington: Optical Societyof America, 1978. (Dig. tech. papers presented at Topical Meet-ing Integrated and Guided Wave Optics, Jan. 16-18, 1978, SaltLake City, UT.)

[17] Integratedand Guided- Wave Optics. Washington: Optical Societyof America, 1980. (Dig. tech. papers presented at Topical Meet-ing Integrated and Guided-Wave Optics, Jan. 28-30, 1980, InclineVillage, NV.)

(18] E. Garmire, Ed., Guided Wave Optical Systemsand Devices (vol.139, Proc. SPIE). Bellingham, Washington; SPIE, 1978 (Proc.Conf. Guided Wave Optical Systems and Devices, Mar. 28-29,1978, Washington, DC.)

[19] E. Garmire, Ed., Guided Wave Optical Systems and Devices II,(vol. 176,Proc. SPIE). Bellingham, Washington: SPIE, 1979(Proc. Conf. Guided Wave Optical Systems and Devices, Apr.17-18, 1979, Washington, DC.)

[201 T. E. Batchman and J. W. Mahoney, "Beginning an integratedoptics laboratory for teaching and research," IEEE Trans. Educa-tion, vol. E-20, pp. 87-91, May 1977.

Thomas K. Gaylord (S'65-M'70-SM'77), for a photograph and biog-raphy, see this issue, p. 51.

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