Semiconductor optical fibre devices

Semiconductor waveguide fabrication for photonics is usually performed in a planar geometry. However, over the past decade a new field of semiconductor-based optical fibre devices has emerged. Using high pressure chemical deposition technology jointly developed by our groups at Penn State and ORC Southampton, crystalline elemental semiconductors such as Si, Ge and even compound II-VI materials such as ZnSe have been chemically deposited at high pressure inside silica capillaries and microstructured optical fibres, allowing the optical and electronic properties of these materials to be exploited for applications such as all-fibre optoelectronics. The high-pressure chemical vapour deposition (HPCVD) technique is simple, low cost, and flexible so that it can be modified to fill a range of complex geometries, thus providing additional design flexibility to enhance the potential application base of the electronic/photonic devices.