Glass-based Manufacturing and Prototyping Platform PhotPack

There has been considerable progress in utilizing fully automated machines for the assembly of micro-optical systems in recent years. Such systems integrate laser sources, passive optical elements, electro-optical components and detectors into tight packages, and efficiently couple light to waveguides in photonic integrated circuits (PIC), optical backplanes, free space or optical fibers. The required electro-optical and optical components are placed and aligned passively and actively, depending on optical and mechanical component tolerances. For one, the relative placing of all components is controlled actively by camera systems, and, more importantly, some or all active components are actually operated, and actively aligned with live feedback from internal and external power and beam image detectors. High precision (and also fast) active optical alignment machines nowadays exist, with more than adequate degrees of freedom and accuracies, so that best optical beam qualities and coupling efficiencies can be achieved.