Microoptics

In the last few decades microoptics has become one of the fastest developing areas of optical research. New technologies for the fabrication of microoptical components have been adapted from Very Large Scale Integration processes. Parallel to passive microoptical components, optoelectronics research has lead to new miniaturised components which can be used as sources, detectors, or modulators for highly integrated optoelectronic systems.

This book gives an overview over the field of 3D microoptics. It starts with an introduction to general aspects of microoptics such as its definition, and the performance and scaling behavior of optical components. Then it focuses on planar fabrication techniques for microoptical components and presents a variety of components and optoelectronic devices which can be produced by these techniques. The reader is lead to Array Optics and connected to hot topics such as Smart Pixels. The last third of the book presents applications which covers Optical Memories, Optical Interconnection Networks and Optical Computing.

Advanced and research students as well as active scientists will find a text and reference book which leads them to the state of the art in the field of microoptics.


Jürgen Jahns studied Physics. After he received his doctorate in 1978 he became a member of the Siemens technical staff in Munich. He worked on robotics, sensors and optical communications. 1986 he moved to AT&T Bell Labs where he worked on optical computing, optical interconnections, diffractive optics, and mircooptic packaging. Since 1994 he has been a Full Professor for Optical Communications and Information Processing at the University of Hagen, Germany. He is member of the editorial advisory board of "Optics Communications" and feature editor for special issues of the "Journal of the Optical Society of America A" and "Applied Optics".

Stefan Sinzinger received his doctorate in Physics 1993. Then he worked at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, NJ. Since 1994 he has been a research assistant at the University of Hagen, Germany.