International Business Machines Corporation

Thilo H C Stoeferle

Rainer Friedbert Mahrt

Gabriele Raino

Nikolaj Moll

Darius Urbonas

A method to configure an optical device. The method may rely on an optical device that includes two parallel mirrors extending, each, parallel to a reference plane, and an active material extending between the mirrors. An average plane of the active material is parallel to said reference plane, so as to form an optical resonator. The active material is energized so as to non-volatilely alter a refractive index and/or an optical absorption in one or more regions of said material. This results in forming one or more cavities, respectively, in which light can be laterally confined, in-plane with said average plane, in addition to being confined between the mirrors, along a direction perpendicular to said reference plane. Each of the one or more cavities has an altered mode profile compared to a non-altered region of the active material. Related methods and optical devices are also disclosed.

Non-volatilely programmable optical devices and methods to configure such optical devices

An optical sensor apparatus is disclosed. The apparatus comprises: a sample holder, configured to hold a sample, in operation; a probe, comprising an arrangement of luminescent quantum dots; an optical source, configured to optically excite the luminescent quantum dots; an optical detector, configured to read optical signals from the quantum dots; and a circuit. The circuit is connected to the optical detector and configured to determine correlations between optical signals read by the optical detector. The probe is positioned or positionable relatively to, e.g., at a distance from, the sample, such that optical signals transmitted by each of the quantum dots are influenced by the sample, in operation. The present invention is further directed to related methods of operation and fabrication methods.

Optical sensor with luminescent quantum nanoprobes

A guiding element suitable for integrated optics and transmission in the visible wavelength region includes a plurality of sub-wavelength sized regions in two parallel periodic arrangements embedded within a waveguide layer located on a planar substrate. The dielectric constant of each regions may be the same but different from that of the substrate, the waveguide layer, and the cladding. The periodicity, dimensions and shape of the regions of the periodic arrangement are selected to achieve the desired transmission and guiding of the incident radiation spectrum (e.g., parallel to the two periodic arrangements). A transparent layer with a dielectric constant between the dielectric constant of the periodic arrangement and the dielectric constant of the substrate/cladding provides confinement normal to the substrate.

Optical waveguide with periodic sub-wavelength sized regions

Various embodiments of an optical switch device are provided. In one embodiment, the optical switch device includes a substrate. A photonic crystal, having a dielectric material, is applied on the substrate. An optical gain layer, having an optical gain material, is disposed above the photonic crystal. The photonic crystal is formed with a second-order distributed feedback structure to emit laser light perpendicular to a plane of the photonic crystal and a first-order distributed feedback structure adapted for reflecting light in the plane of the photonic crystal back into the second-order distributed feedback structure. The first-order distributed feedback structure at least one of fully surrounds the second-order distributed feedback structure and is arranged on two opposing edges of the second-order distributed feedback structure.

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Zurich, Switzerland

Thilo H C Stoeferle