Open Competition 3 - Electronics and Photonics

High-Performance Microresonators and Oscillators for Broadband Telecommunications

Sponsor: OEwaves, Inc.

• Project Performance Period: 10/1/2001 - 9/30/2003
• Total project (est.): $3,090,596.00
• Requested ATP funds: $1,999,840.00

Oscillators are the heart of modern communications transmitters and receivers, providing reference signals to establish or select particular frequency channels; they also enable clocks for many other electronic systems ranging from microprocessors to radar. Oscillators have advanced very little over the past two decades and now limit the performance of some microelectronic components. OEwaves Inc. plans to develop technologies for a novel opto-electronic oscillator that generates very clean reference signals -- at least two hundred times "cleaner" than conventional oscillators -- in the microwave frequency band (1-100 gigahertz), in a smaller, lighter, more robust, and far less expensive package than existing clocks. A clean signal means reduced uncertainty or jitter of the clock beat, enabling denser packing of channels and improving reception. Conventional oscillators use quartz crystals as resonators, which vibrate at a fixed frequency determined by size and cut. The new oscillator, based on a concepts developed in the space program, will use an optical resonator, which supports higher frequencies without the need for electronic multiplication. The microresonator will be a glass sphere 100-500 micrometers in diameter, within which packets of infrared light will circulate billions of times, a long pathway that results in low noise. The company will identify optimal resonator geometry and size and devise a fabrication and packaging scheme to condense the oscillator into a microcip-sized package that can be mass manufactured. ATP support will accelerate development of the core technologies by four years. If successfully developed and commercialized, the advances will improve the performance and reduce the costs of wireless and fiber-optic communications, high-speed electronics, scientific instruments, and optical biosensors, and could lead to innovations such as low-cost radar for anti-collision systems in cars. Component costs could be cut by up to 50 percent while significantly improving performance. U.S. equipment makers will enjoy increased revenues, and consumers and industry also will benefit from the low-cost, high-performance products.

For project information:

Suzanne E. Jensen, (626) 449-5000
suzanne@oewaves.com

ATP Project Manager

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