SiGe experts push CMOS envelope for Light Peak transceivers Oct 9, 2009
IPtronics A/S (Roskilde, Denmark) has announced a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) for transmission and a photodiode (PiN, for p-type/intrinsic/n-type), for reception. Intel itself is supplying the controller chip that interfaces devices to the electrical side of the Ensphere chip. (EETimes)
Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Efficient Solar Cells Sep 11, 2009
The researchers fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell called a photodiode, formed from an individual carbon nanotube ... In a carbon nanotube-based photodiode, electrons (blue) and holes (red) - the positively charged areas where electrons used to be before becoming excited - release their excess energy to efficiently create more electron-hole pairs when light is shined on the device. (Science Daily)
Up-scale: Frequency converter enables ultra-high sensitivity infrared spectrometry Aug 27, 2009
The NIST group, Lijun Ma, Oliver Slattery and Xiao Tang, wanted to develop a way to use existing detectors such as avalanche photodiode detectors (APD), which work very well for detecting visible light and are widely used, but are ineffective for the detection of NIR.. Their approach was to adapt a technique developed two years ago at NIST for quantum cryptography that up converts photons at one frequency to a higher frequency. (EurekAlert!)
Fujitsu Optical Components and Furukawa Electric to Jointly Develop Integrated Receivers for 40Gbps and 100Gbps Optical Networks Aug 19, 2009
Fujitsu Optical Components is responsible for developing and commercializing the receiver utilizing integrated module technologies for PLC, high-speed photodiodes, and amplifier ... (4) Balanced Receiver: Consisting of two photodiodes that receive both positive optical phase and reverse optical phase output from delay line interferometers and 90 degrees Hybrid, it improves receiving characteristics by using the difference of those photodiode currents. (JCN Network, Japan)
Scientists unveil the six million shot camera, the world's fastest Apr 30, 2009
All that remains is to detect the light as it pops out of the fibre with a standard photodiode and digitise it, assigning the parts of the pulse that arrive at different times to different points in two-dimensional space. The result of all this optical trickery: an image that represents a snapshot just 440 trillionths of a second long.. (BBC News)
