Open Competition 2 - Electronics and Photonics

A New Technology Platform for Advanced Components and Subsystems for Next Generation Optical Networks

Sponsor: Kiara Networks

• Project Performance Period: 10/1/2001 - 9/30/2004
• Total project (est.): $2,499,510.00
• Requested ATP funds: $1,994,346.00

The rapid expansion of the Internet has fueled growing demand for network data capacity. All-optical components are needed for complex, very high capacity fiber optic systems in which many wavelengths of light are combined at a variety of bit rates on a single optical fiber. In particular, there is a need for low-cost components that ensure low signal loss. In a three-year project, Kiara Networks plans to develop a new optical technology platform and to demonstrate the feasibility, reliability, and manufacturability of two types of low-cost, low-loss components based on this new underlying technology platform. The goal is to demonstrate low-loss and low-cost phase and polarization control devices as well as to demonstrate new modulation and switching devices, and electronically "tunable" wavelength filters and subsystems. Kiara is a startup company with insufficient internal funds to pursue this work on its own, and venture capital firms view the research as too risky at the present stage. ATP support will accelerate the necessary critical research by several years. If successful, the project will enable the development of fast, reliable low-loss and low-cost networking products that should be easily integrable into the installed base of fiber-optic networks. The demand for such products would be enormous: The optical components market is estimated to exceed $20 billion and is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. Benefits to the nation will include reduced networking equipment costs and increased productivity through more efficient deployment of the Internet. This new technology could have applications in fiber-optic sensors and advanced laser sources.

For project information:

Ravi K. Jain, (505) 268-3600
rjain@kiaranetworks.com

ATP Project Manager

Thomas Lettieri, (301) 975-3496
thomas.lettieri@nist.gov