Concepts for Teaching Optoelectronic Circuits and Systems

Development and design of optical communication and optoelectronic systems is now necessary for the engineers in electronics and microelectronics [1]. While such design is mainly based on the physical understanding of the optics and optoelectronic phenomena, it cannot be efficiently achieved without using the design and optimization tools. Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools are now widely used in the field of electronic and communication systems. For the development of optoelectronic systems, such tools are thus of great importance. At the INPG/ESISAR we developed a teaching approach for optical/optoelectronic circuits and systems for optical communication applications. Such approach is based the use of the available software at universities. We introduced two complementary techniques. The first one is system oriented and is based on the use of the SIMULINK simulator (within the MATLAB software) frequently used in signal processing. One of the experiment objectives is thus to teach to the student how to adapt a conventional system simulator for the design of an optical or optoelectronic system. The second one is mainly dedicated for guided waves optical circuits and is based on the use the SERENADE suite and more specifically the Harmonica module for the linear and non linear simulation of RF circuits. In both cases, the students have to develop their own model describing the optical properties of the considered devices. Then the simulation capabilities of the software are used to get the optical response and to study complex optical circuits and systems.