Organic photonics for communications

Photons as information carriers have the potential to meet the ever-increasing demands on bandwidth and information density in fields such as information and communication technology, biomedicine and computing. Organic semiconductors may be well-suited to such applications, thanks to their ability to transmit, modulate and detect light in an architecture that is low cost, flexible, lightweight and robust. Here we review recent breakthroughs in organic photonics, including ultrafast all-optical modulation in polymer photonic crystals, silicon/organic hybrid systems, gain switching in polymer amplifiers and lasers, and new devices such as hybrid organic/inorganic electrically pumped lasers.