| In this thesis the design, fabrication, and testing of high-performance components of future fiber-optic and free space optical communications systems are presented.; The first part of this dissertation discusses the design and fabrication of high-speed, high-density arrays of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) for application with free space optical interconnects. Both ion implantation and polyimide planarization were investigated as methods of surface passivation to eliminate parasitic bond pad capacitance and increase the frequency bandwidth. Low-threshold, uniform 20-by-20 arrays, with a 3dB frequency of up to 5GHz, were demonstrated.; In the second part of this thesis the development of selective area growth (SAG) as a means of bandgap engineering for fabricating photonic integrated circuits (PICs) is reported. SAG is then applied specifically to the fabrication of a monolithic semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and an electroabsorption modulator (EAM). The photonic integrated circuit is then completed with the addition of a spot-size converter. |
