Optics and photonics

The latest publications in this offer are:

• April 10, 2026

  E2660

  Semiconductor lasers

  Laser diodes are a leading laser technology due to their compactness, scalability, and versatile performance. This article presents their operating principles, gain media types, and main architectures. Key applications span telecommunications, industry, sensing, and medicine. Beyond mature commercial markets, current research focuses on spectral extension toward deep UV and far-infrared wavelengths, alongside integration into emerging quantum technologies, opening new application frontiers.

• April 10, 2026

  RE413

  Active optofluidics

  A microfluidic device assembles different modules, each designed to perform a specific task, effectively fixing the entire structure and its functions. By exchanging momentum and/or energy with liquids, light can represent an attractive ‘actuator’ because the interaction with the light field is contactless and dynamically reconfigurable. Drawing inspiration from the concept of ‘optical chip’ derived from suspension manipulation, this article proposes new avenues for extending this concept to two-phase microfluidic flows by suggesting the use of various photoinduced mechanisms to design a multifunctional optofluidic toolkit.

• February 10, 2026

  E1998

  Modulators and photonic components integrated in lithium niobate

  This paper describes five examples of modulators integrated in lithium niobate, taken among the most representative, both in terms of their impact in applications and in terms of their architecture. It first studies Mach-Zehnder amplitude modulators, then double parallel modulators for complex formats combining phase and amplitude. It then addresses the case of the 2×2 active coupler, the switch and the polarization rotator. The Y-junction phase modulator widely deployed in inertial units based on fiber optic gyroscopes will be studied.

• February 10, 2026

  E1997

  Modulators and photonic components integrated in lithium niobate

  This paper describes the physical principles behind the technology for integrating electro-optical modulators into lithium niobate (LiNbO3) mainly by metal diffusion methods for confined light guiding. It gives the rules for designing optical modulation components to bring them to an industrial level. The paper places particular emphasis on the design of microwave electrodes allowing modulation bandwidths of several tens of GHz. The manufacturing processes are described and highlight both the possible options and the difficulties to overcome.

• November 10, 2025

  E3680

  Comparison of optical and electrical connections

  As data demands soar and traditional electrical connections reach their limits, optical interconnects are predominant as a transformative solution for high-speed, energy-efficient data transmission in current telecommunication and computer systems. This article presents the intrinsic advantages of optical communication links and compare then with their copper equivalent. The article also summarizes the physics of light propagation in fibers and its limitations.

• October 10, 2025

  E6450

  Fiber lasers

  Fiber lasers are used both for industrial and scientific applications, because they present outstanding properties such as large optical efficiency, ability to dissipate heat, excellent beam quality, and potential for integration. This article describes their properties, and relates them to relevant physical effects, type of active fiber used, and implemented laser architecture. This allows understanding their versatility: fiber lasers emit wavelengths ranging from the visible to the mid-infrared, in temporal regimes from the single-frequency continuous wave operation to the generation of femtosecond pulses.

• September 10, 2025

  E6452

  Supercontinuum fiber laser

• April 1, 2025

  E6327 Review

  Luminescent materials: optical and spectroscopic characterization techniques

  Today luminescent materials enter into the composition of many devices for applications ranging from lighting and public displays to ultra-intense lasers, via high speed optical telecommunication and quantum information. Many scientific articles have thus already been dedicated to their description and can be found in the recent literature. This article deals more specifically with the tools and techniques used to characterize their optical and spectroscopic properties, with particular emphasis, by way of illustration, on those that are now the most widely studied, i.e. solid state inorganic materials doped by rare-earth ions and transition metal ions of the iron group.

• March 6, 2025

  NM2020 Review

  Photonic crystals, towards fully integrated optics

• January 22, 2025

  E7007 Review

  Semiconductor optical amplifier

  This paper addresses the Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) operation principle and main features. Steady state characteristics are presented: optical gain and amplification bandwidth, polarization sensitivity, saturation power, noise figure. Then, the SOA response to time dependent signals is analyzed, as well as its consequences on signal quality due to harmonic distortion and four wave mixing effects. Also, comparison between the SOA and the EDFA is addressed. Finally, the SOA main applications in the fields of optical communication and integrated optics are considered.

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