30, 20, and 10 Years Ago in OPN

“One main problem has been the lack of suitable devices that give optical outputs from electronics … [S]uch devices must be integrable in large numbers into electronic systems, they must be small, and they must be energy efficient. Quantum well modulators potentially can satisfy all these requirements, provided we have an actual integration technology … One scheme—the so-called field-effect transistor SEED (F-SEED)—integrates field effect transistors (FETs) with quantum well modulators by making the FETs directly in the top layer of the modulator diode.”