US Patent 7020372 Optical devices with engineered nonlinear nanocomposite materials

The invention relates to an optical device. The optical device comprises a waveguide core and a nanocomposite material optically coupled to the waveguide core. The nanocomposite material includes a plurality of quantum dots. The nanocomposite material has a nonlinear index of refraction γ that is at least 10−9 cm2/W when irradiated with an activation light having a wavelength λ between approximately 3×10−5 cm and 2×10−4 cm.