75% coupling to cleaved single mode fibre has been obtained for a 1.55 /spl mu/m tapered active strained MQW layer device. A fully packaged component using precision laser die cleaving and a silicon micro machined substrate has produced a record 55% passive coupling.

A programmable 100 Gbit/s optical pulse pattern generator based on planar silica delay lines and semiconductor laser amplifier switches is demonstrated experimentally. The technology has key applications in ultrafast all-optical networks.