Wow, that was quite a mouthful. I really appreciate that you chose to offer your understanding. I am not an engineer, but I have a background from the molecular side of electro optics and have been trying to learn enough of the industry to comprehend what the real bottlenecks are. This problem has been around for decades and it's clear that many diverse approaches are nearing a solution.

If you wouldn't mind could you slow it down and walk me through this reasoning that you've offered? I would much appreciate the opportunity to understand this better as would many who listen here. I am entirely at peace with leaving LWLG out of the discussion as I do realize there are better forums for those details.

"A waveguide is in-plane and POET is focused on out of plane applications of the VCSEL where the aperture size and shape can be well controlled to limit losses as opposed to in-plane applications where spot size converters become important. The POET modulator is integrated into the thyristor type structure as a whispering gallery mode resonator. In plane applications will have a different geometry but using polymers would complicate the epi structure."

No waveguides! What? No wonder I wasn't able to follow the whitepaper as closely as I would have liked. So if I'm a photon exiting a VSCEL out of plane. how do I get into the thyristor? Is it through space?

I will reread the whitepapers but any help would be most appreciated. I am used to thinking about light coming from optical fiber being converted to electrical signal. In the other direction electrical signal coming from CPU being converted to optical signal and out. Is that something you would be willing to outline in plain english?