Rapid Prototyping Of Photonic Integrated Circuits

Photonic integrated circuits, including those to be used in optical packaging, offer important cost and environmental advantages over circuits composed of discrete components. However, the design and fabrication of complex, large-area optical waveguide circuits is severely limited by the lack of computerized tools for design, production, and testing. In this paper, we will describe our work at Columbia in developing a laser prototyping system, in conjunction with computer simulation, to design, fabricate, and test novel waveguide circuits. The system is also useful for manufacturing small-run circuit designs. A schematic of the main apparatus is shown in Fig. 1.