There is a relentless push for cost and size reduction in optical transmitters and receivers for fiber-optic links. Monolithically integrated optical chips in InP and Si may be a way to leap ahead of this trend. We discuss uses of integration technology to accomplish various telecommunications functions.

We present our recent work on monolithically integrated devices comprising a variety of functional elements such as high speed optical transmitters and receivers, electro-absorption modulators integrated with tunable dispersion compensators and fast-tunable wavelength converters.