ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
                              &
           IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY


                 Holiday Party and Meeting

Date:  Tuesday, 9 Dec. 1997
Time:  6:30-7:30 appetizers/light dinner fare and cocktails
       7:30 PM speaker
Place: Damon Room
       NCAR
       1850 Table Mesa Dr
       Boulder, CO


Integrated Optics in Planar Lightwave Circuits

       Katsunari Okamoto
       LEOS Distingished Lecturer
       NTT Optoelectronics Laboratories
       Tokai 162, Naka-Gun, Ibaraki Pref.
       319-11, Japan
       Telephone : +81-29-287-7680
       Facsimile : +81-29-287-7873


Abstract:

Planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) are devices that integrate fiber-matched silica 
waveguides on silicon or glass substrate to provide an efficient means of 
interaction for the guided-wave optical signals.  A variety of passive PLCs have 
been developed. NxN arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexers are quite 
important for all-optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks since 
they are capable of processing broadband optical signals without converting them 
to electronic signals. Hybrid opto-electronics integration based on the 
terraced-silicon platform technologies are also important both to the fiber-to-
the-home (FTTH) applications and high-speed signal processing.  Very low-loss 
silica waveguides with well-defined core geometry enable us to design 
complicated circuits by utilizing various numerical simulation techniques. 
Synthesis theory of the lattice-form programmable optical filters have been 
developed and implemented to the fabrication of programmable group-delay 
equalizers and dispersion slope equalizers.

My talk describes the waveguide design based on beam propagation method (BPM) 
and review various PLC devices such as NxN star couplers, AWG multiplexers, 
optical add/drop multiplexers, thermo-optic matrix switches and hybrid 
optoelectronics integration technologies for WDM and subscriber networks.

Biography:

Katsunari Okamoto was born in Hiroshima, Japan, on October 19, 1949.  He 
received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from Tokyo 
University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1972, 1974, and 1977, respectively.

In Tokyo university, he was engaged in the finite element method (FEM) analysis 
of optical fibers and the synthesis of the optimum refractive-index profile for 
the multimode fibers. His supervisor was the late Prof. Takanori Okoshi.

He joined Ibaraki Electrical Communication Laboratory, Nippon Telegraph and 
Telephone Corporation, Ibaraki, Japan, in 1977, and was engaged in the research 
on transmission characteristics of multimode, dispersion-flattened single-mode, 
single-polarization (PANDA) fibers, and fiber-optic components. As for the 
dispersion-flattened fibers, he first proposed the idea and confirmed it 
experimentally.

From September 1982 to September 1983, he joined Optical Fiber Group, 
Southampton University, Southampton, England, where he was engaged in the 
research on birefringent (Bow-tie) optical fibers.

From October 1987 to October 1988, he stayed RCAST (Research Center for Advanced 
Science & Technology) of Tokyo University as an associate professor with Prof. 
E.A.J.Marcatili from AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Since October 1988, he has been working on the analysis and synthesis of the 
guided-wave devices, the computer-aided-design (CAD) and fabrication of the 
silica-based planar lightwave circuits at Ibaraki R&D Center, NTT Opto-
electronics Laboratories. He is presently a research fellow in Okamoto research 
laboratory. He published more than 100 papers and authored or co-authored 8 
books.