We report on several photoconductive (PC) geometries for the generation of both guided-wave and free-space terahertz (THz) waveforms. It is found that guided-wave THz electrical waveforms can be produced through both PC self-switching and frozen wave generation--eliminating the need for an ultrashort carrier lifetime in the semiconductor substrate. The concept of PC switching is also applied to the generation of free-space THz waveforms, and various ZnSe detectors are investigated as potential electro-optic THz sensors.

This review paper addresses an emerging aspect of the relationship between optics and microwave electronics: the application of short pulses of laser light to the sensing and measurement of continuous-wave microwave fields. In particular, very short duration optical pulses can take on the role of ultrafast sampling gates within the framework of the electro-optic sampling technique in order to realize unprecedented temporal resolution, measurement bandwidth, and probing flexibility. As a result, in numerous instances electro-optic sampling has been demonstrated, primarily within the research laboratory, to be an effective tool in the field of diagnostic testing and the determination of the electrical characteristics of microwave components. Recently, with the emergence of new applications such as microwave electric-field mapping in wireless and radar environments, and as the ultrafast time domain has gained in importance for the area of optical telecommunications, added attention has been directed to electro-optic sampling. Herein, an abbreviated historical perspective of the history of electro-optic field mapping is presented, along with the fundamental concepts that are utilized in the technique. The effectiveness of an optical-fiber-mounted electro-optic probe in a scanning electric-field-mapping system is highlighted in several diagnostic measurements on microwave and millimeter-wave antenna arrays, and a combined electric-field and thermal-imaging capability is also introduced.

Optical near-field distributions of planar dielectric and metallic objects placed on a large dielectric substrate plate have been calculated by the volume integral equation using an iterative method called generalized minimal residual method with the fast Fourier transform technique. The basic characteristics of the near-field have been investigated in detail for large and small objects, dielectric and metallic objects and incident p-polarized and s-polarized evanescent fields.

We demonstrated apertureless scanning near-field optical microscopy using a small protrusion (a simple 500-nm-diameter polystyrene particle) on a flat glass substrate as a probe. We designed a small sample stage to operate with the particle probe. It is a 40-µm-diameter circular stage, fabricated from an optical fiber by Hydrofluoric acid (HF) etching. In this paper, we present the first atomic force microscope and scanning near-field optical microscope images obtained with such a probe. We also discuss schemes for probe-sample distance control in this novel form of apertureless scanning near-field optical microscopy.

The radar cross section (RCS) of a dielectric-coated cylindrical cavity was measured and the measurements were compared with those calculated according to the iterative physical optics (IPO). The IPO analysis used the equivalent-impedance boundary condition (EIBC) based on transmission-line theory which takes into account the thickness of the coating. It was consequently found that this condition is much more effective than the ordinary-impedance boundary condition based on the intrinsic impedance of the material.

Polyurea thin films containing azo-based nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophore were prepared by co-deposition of 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate and 2,4-diamino-4'-nitroazobenzene monomers using the ionization-assisted method. The co-deposited film reacted to form polyurea after annealing in the air. The dichroic optical absorption spectra indicated the preferential orientation of dipole moments in the as-deposited film. The substrate bias voltage influenced the optical anisotropy. Maker fringe measurement showed that the films have NLO activity without the poling process.

Organic nonlinear optical crystal 4-(p-dimethylaminostyryl)-1-methylpridinium tosylate (DAST) has a larger electro-optic (EO) coefficient than that of LiNbO3 crystal. Thus, DAST is a promising material for EO switching device. To use its large EO coefficient effectively, a waveguide structure is desirable. We have successfully fabricated two types of DAST crystal optical channel waveguide. One is a serially grafted waveguide combining a DAST and a transparent polymer by using the combination of standard photo-process and reactive ion-etching (RIE). Because DAST has large optical loss, parts of the waveguide should be composed of transparent polymer with a serially grafted structure with DAST. This structure reduced not only a propagation loss but also input/output losses. This serially graft waveguide fabrication technique for active organic crystal is available to many types of crystals with device function. The other is a channel waveguide made by a photo-bleaching technique. The cladding part of DAST waveguide was photo-bleached by irradiation of UV light. Under and over cladding layer were composed with UV-cured resin that did not dissolve the DAST crystal. This technique is very convenient for making DAST waveguide because of its simple procedure to make core-cladding structure of DAST compared to standard photo-process and RIE.

All-optical switching operating at 1.55 µm band in fabricated GaInAsP directional couplers loaded with grating are reported experimentally. These switching operations were realized in spatially separated output ports. The devices are suitable for optical integrated circuits and would operate as all-optical routing switches in practical power level by use of optical Kerr effect and Bragg grating. Using the optical bistability in the device, latching operation for output signal can be realized in spatially separated output ports and the outputs from each port are complementary. Two all-optical gate operations, which are optical inverting operation and optically controlled switching in spatially separated output ports, are also demonstrated, where the signal and control lights have different wavelength.

We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate low loss branches in a Si photonic wire waveguide. Approximate calculation by the two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (2-D FDTD) method and detailed design by the 3-D FDTD method indicate that low excess loss less than 0.2 dB is expected for a µm-size bend-waveguide-type branch at a wavelength of 1.55 µm. This branch is fabricated in a silicon-on-insulator substrate and the loss is evaluated to be 0.3 dB. This value is small enough to construct a very compact branching circuit.

An optical detection system using a DFB laser with a very small aperture is theoretically proposed. The threshold gain level in DFB laser is sensitively varied with combined reflections by the facet and the corrugation as well as with the optical injection reflected at the surface of the optical disk. Variation of the threshold gain level is counted as the voltage change on electrodes of the laser. It is found that sensitivity of the optical detection with a well-designed DFB laser becomes six times larger than that with conventional Fabry-Perot ones. Field distribution around the small aperture is analyzed taking into account both the near-field and the radiation field. Numerical data on the voltage change are given as examples of the detection system.

Recent activities on ultrafast photonic device technology development in the Femtosecond Technology Project sponsored by NEDO are introduced. Topics include management and control of the higher order dispersions of optical fibers, ultrafast mode-locked semiconductor laser, symmetric Mach-Zehnder type all-optical switch, ultrafast serial-to-parallel signal converter and sub-picosecond wavelength switch. Challenges towards novel ultrafast switching material systems are also described.

A tunable external-cavity InGaAs/AlGaAs quantum-well laser using a grating coupler monolithically integrated in a selectively disordered waveguide is demonstrated. The laser consists of an amplifier with a narrow channel for lateral single-mode guiding and a tapered section, a grating coupler for output beam collimation and wavelength dispersion, and an external half mirror. Selective quantum-well disordering technique using SiO2 caps of different thicknesses and rapid thermal annealing was employed to reduce the passive waveguide loss in the grating coupler region. Loss reduction from 40 cm-1 to 3 cm-1 was accomplished. Resultant increase of the grating coupler efficiency and expansion of the effective aperture length led to significant improvement of the laser performances. The maximum output power of 105 mW and wide tuning range of 21.1 nm centered at 997 nm were obtained. The well collimated output beam of full diffraction angles at half maximum of 0.16 0.18 was obtained.

The boundary integral equation (BIE) on interior walls with surface impedance conditions is implemented to the iterative physical optics method and how to treat the singularities involved in the BIE of an impedance cavity is described. Singular integrals over a rectangular region can be represented by simple elementary functions.

This paper shows a comparison between several procedures to represent the Physical Optics (PO) current density into a hybrid Moment-Method-Physical-Optics (MM-PO) code. Some numerical results demonstrate that a set of basis functions suitable for the Method of Moments (MM) may be inappropriate to model the PO currents. A new evaluation of the PO operator is proposed. The radiation can be analytically determined and, since it includes a linear interpolation of the phase, it can be applied over large triangular domains. This allows a drastic reduction of the computational cost, maintaining or even improving the level of accuracy.

Beam reconfiguration by structural reconfigurable antenna, such as the small multi-panel reconfigurable reflector antenna, has an aspect of great concern, that is the effects due to the use of a number of small panels to form the reflecting surface. It is thus a matter of great interest to numerically investigate all possible factors affecting the performance of this type of antenna such as: neighboring panels blocking, diffraction. The "null-field hypothesis" and PTD are employed to account for the effects of both phenomena on the main beam steering ability and the cross-polar level. In addition, the transformation of the polygonal flat domains into the square domains is applied in calculating the PO radiation field due to the various irregular polygonal flat sections of the arbitrary initial approximate reflector e.g., the flat circular reflector and the paraboloidal reflector. It is found that the main contribution to the total cross polarization is depolarization due to the finite size of the panels. The maximum cross-polar gain predicted using PTD is around -30 dB. The blocking effect has minor influence on cross-polarization. Both effects cause distortion on the co-polar pattern for the observer far from boresight but blocking has more influence than edge diffraction. Both effects have minor influence on the co-polar gain. The co-polar gain has variation of less than or equal to 0.07 dB in the flat case and 0.16 dB in the paraboloid case.

This paper first gives the exact surface integral representation for PO diffracted electromagnetic fields from bounded flat plate through the deformations of the original surface by using field equivalence principle. This exact representation with the surface integral can be approximately reduced to novel line integral along the boundary of the plate by the use of Maggi-Rubinowicz transformation, which keeps a high accuracy even in near zone. Numerical results for the scattering of the electric dipole wave from the square planar plate are presented for demonstrating the accuracy.

As the capacity of the personal computer and workstation increase rapidly, many electromagnetic simulators are widely used. In this paper, Ansoft's High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), which is a commercial software product, is applied to design a mode converter operating at 35 GHz is fabricated based on the simulation results. The numerical results are in good agreement with the measured data.

Photonic crystals have seen major advances in the past few years in the optical range. The association of in-plane waveguiding and two-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs) in thin-slab or waveguide structures leads to good 3D confinement with easy fabrication. Such structures, much easier to fabricate than 3D PCs open many exciting opportunities in optoelectronic devices and integrated optics. We present experiments on a variety of structures and devices, as well as modelling tools, which show that 2D PCs etched through waveguides supported by substrates are a viable route to high-performance PC-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs). In particular, they exhibit low out-of-plane diffraction losses. Low-loss waveguides, high finesse microcavities, and their mutual coupling are demonstrated. PACS: 42.70 QS, 42.55 Sa, 42.82 m, 42.50-p.

Photonic crystals have seen major advances in the past few years in the optical range. The association of in-plane waveguiding and two-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs) in thin-slab or waveguide structures leads to good 3D confinement with easy fabrication. Such structures, much easier to fabricate than 3D PCs open many exciting opportunities in optoelectronic devices and integrated optics. We present experiments on a variety of structures and devices, as well as modelling tools, which show that 2D PCs etched through waveguides supported by substrates are a viable route to high-performance PC-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs). In particular, they exhibit low out-of-plane diffraction losses. Low-loss waveguides, high finesse microcavities, and their mutual coupling are demonstrated. PACS: 42.70 QS, 42.55 Sa, 42.82 m, 42.50-p.

The effectiveness and possible applications of all-optical signal processing using highly-nonlinear dispersion-shifted fibers (HNL-DSFs) are described. Transparent and simultaneous processings of multi-channels WDM signal are key features of optical fiber processors. Simultaneous wavelength conversion of 3210 Gb/s WDM signal by four-wave mixing, all-optical 3R regeneration of 220 Gb/s WDM signal using nonlinear loop mirrors, and simultaneous recovery of 2020 GHz WDM optical clocks by supercontinuum were successfully demonstrated using HNL-DSFs, and possible applications of ultra-fast and multi-channel processing in future photonic networks are discussed.