ALL-opical logic gates based on micro-nanometer semiconductor waveguides

All-optical logic gates are key photonics devices in all-optical computing and signal processing systems. With the development of CMOS techniques, all-optical logic gates based on micro-nanometer semiconductor waveguides have become an important research field in integrated photonics. In particular, silicon-based integrated photonic devices have attracted great attention. We shall describe various kinds of all-optical logic gates based on silicon-on-insulator and Ⅲ-Ⅴ group compounds, which have three different waveguide structures, namely, the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, microring resonator and strip waveguide. An analysis and comparison of these logic gates with regard to operation speed and power dissipation will be presented.