This material covers a number of basic aspects regarding optoelectronics and optical communications. Optoelectronics components are an important part of many electronics and telecommunications systems today. Optoelectronic components
can either generate optical signals from electrical signals, or turn optical signals into electrical signals. Optoelectronics components often involve the use of compound semiconductor materials. In this material we discuss the
history of these components, the types of semiconductor materials used for these components, the applications for these components, methods to build and control the optical properties of these devices (like the bandgaps and refractive indexes), and
the reliability of these devices.
