Progress and prospect of quantum dots and photonic crystal for future photonic network devices

Broadband and wireless network will play key roles toward the ubiquitous information society in which people communicate each other at anytime and anywhere in the 21/sup st/ century,. For the broadband and wireless communication network, photonic network device will be the most important as an infrastructures, innovation of the network devices is significantly required. In particular, development of semiconductor nano-devices will be indispensable in order to achieve efficient communication networks of high-performance. The nano-devices are based upon various nanotechnologies including quantum dots (QDs), photonic crystals, and nano-scale controlled interface of emerging materials such as III-Nitride and organic semiconductors. Moreover, integration of those nanostructures together with MEMS technology is very promising for future photonic devices. In this paper, we first briefly discuss the ubiquitous information society, indicating a paradigm shift from one-to-one communication to complex community where everything is tightly connected each other through networks. Prospect and direction of broadband and wireless technologies based upon the nanotechnology will be addressed. Then, we discuss our recent progress in semiconductor nanostructures including quantum dots (QD) and photonic crystal (PC) for broadband photonic network devices. In addition, impact of optical MEMS integrated with nano-devices for various unique functions and performance is addressed.