One of the unique devices enabled by Etched Facet Technology is BinOptics’ proprietary semiconductor ring laser. Ring lasers can be triangular, diamond-shaped, or even more elaborate structures. The ring is formed using straight waveguide regions and the appropriate use of fully reflecting and partially reflecting facets.

BinOptics ring lasers intrinsically support a clockwise and counter-clockwise wave. A strategically placed etched mirror provides the necessary feedback to enhance one of the modes, yielding a single-output device. The result is a high performance laser manufactured without epitaxial regrowth, without facet cleaving, and without facet reflectivity modification.

Ring lasers are useful as cw sources and for advanced network functions such as Digital Photonic Logic (DPL). For DPL, the bistable nature of the ring laser is exploited to create digital logic functions based on whether the laser is oscillating in the clockwise or counter-clockwise mode. The direction can be switched very rapidly (at speeds in excess of 10Gbps) when a small external optical signal is injected into the cavity. DPL is a candidate technology for advanced applications in digital networks such as ultra-fast all-optical switching, optical regeneration, and wavelength conversion as well as analog-to-digital conversion.