Optical integrated circuit designed to operate by use of photons

Claim 1

Apparatus comprising an integrated circuit chip portion which is designed to operate by use of photons within the wavelength range of from 0.3 μm to 10.0 μm as measured in vacuum, said portion comprising a full functioning optical integrated circuit including a substrate supporting photonic devices including "active" devices, for modifying some property of such photons temporally in response to modifying energy and "passive" devices comprising devices serving as transmission paths for such photons, at least some of said paths being optically connected with active devices, in that said full functioning optical circuit performs at least three photon-governing functions, selected from the group consisting of transport, redirection, combination, splitting, modulation, and amplification, the said integrated circuit being provided with output means for coupling photonic energy from said portion, characterized in that: at least 50% of said active and passive devices are of a functional layer thickness as measured orthogonal to a plane of transmission path direction, of mathematical value in accordance with the equation, ##EQU4## in which: T=functional layer thickness λ.sub. = wavelength as measured in vacuum n D =the average value of bulk refractive index for the functional layer n S =the effective average value of bulk refractive index for the surrounding material about the said devices; and in that the index contrast, defined as the numerical value of the fraction, n D /n S , is at least equal to 1.5, thereby permitting small attained spacing values, between devices consistent with minimum permitted unwanted signal coupling.