“POET creates a low barrier to entry into the single-mode optics marketplace for ZKTel”

Below is a post that I was sitting on but this appears to be a good time to post it.

In the early days of 100G I recall a comment from Suresh that it is hard to compete with just cost savings alone so I was happy to hear the latest in reference to POETs legacy products:

we have shown performance and cost that are superior to the market incumbents

For those wondering about VCSELs. I don't know if POET is working on applications associated with VCSELs right now but  it is a good question. As we know VCSELs are primarily out of plane devices and generally operate in the 850nm window using multi mode fiber.  Multimode fiber is roughly 6 times the diameter of single mode. As such light produced by the VCSEL output is subject to scattering. Light bounces off the multimode fiber walls such that photons do not arrive at the receiving end at the same time. Thus multi mode was limited to short distances and required significant forward error correction creating additional load and delay. So multimode was generally replaced by single mode to avoid costly fiber replacement during data center expansions. Ultimately though VCSELs are again modulated by voltage input and thus are limited in speed similar to the DML. That being said I would expect that POET is probably on top of the next generation of VCSEL applications for near infrared wavelengths of 850nm, 905nm and 940nm for LIDAR. However higher wavelengths are also applied for greater reach. There are continuous wave VCSELs which of course require a modulator to achieve the speeds achieved by EMLs.

This is where I think one of POETs true strengths are. The ability to integrate a very wide selection of material sets with a waveguide platform that can operate from the visible light spectrum to ???