This course teaches the fundamentals of photonic integrated circuits with a focus on the telecomm and datacomm industry.  It starts with the basics of optical waveguides and moves to more and more complex devices.  It describes many state-of-the art devices and explains how they work. Details of the design and process flow are also given. Silicon, InP, and other material platforms are covered. This course assumes a basic knowledge of optics and electronics.

This course should enable you to:

• Gain a deeper understanding of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for telecomm and datacomm.

• Describe the pros and cons of PICs.

• Understand details about the most popular material systems, especially silicon photonics and indium phosphide photonics.

• Learn enough optical waveguide theory to explain many of the phenomena in PICs.

• Discover the issues that PIC designers face.

• Learn the main steps in producing a PIC.

• Get an up-to-date view on PICs in the communication industry.

• Be better able to separate hype from reality with regard to PICs.