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An integrated optical circuit is one or more circuits composed of solid-state optical components on a semiconductor or dielectric substrate. Components include light sources, optical filters, photodetectors, and thin-film optical waveguides. An example of an integrated optical circuit is an opto-isolator (or opto-coupler) which allows one circuit to interact with another while remaining electrically separated from the other. A 2005 development solved a quantum noise problem that prevented silicon from being used to generate laser light, permitting new integrated optical circuits to use high-bandwidth laser light generated within the circuit itself as a signal medium.
This technology is of interest to computing due to:
Optical transmission speed is 21 cm/ns faster than copper.
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