Open Competition 1 - Electronics and Photonics

40 Gb/s Widely Tunable Photonic Integrated Transmitter

Sponsor: Agility Communications, Inc.

• Project Performance Period: 6/1/2003 - 5/31/2006
• Total project (est.): $3,004,000.00
• Requested ATP funds: $1,999,761.00

The existing Internet communications infrastructure uses very expensive fiber optic communications equipment. To accommodate the continuing growth in Internet data traffic, service providers need much less expensive components to resume building high-capacity fiber-optic broadband networks. The availability of widely tunable lasers, capable of tuning wavelengths on many tens of data channels, will reduce equipment and operating costs and thereby enhance deployment of cost-effective fiber-optic systems. Current networks use fixed-wavelength lasers. Agility plans a three-year project to develop the technologies necessary for fabricating a compact, high-performance indium phosphide chip - a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) - that integrates a widely tunable laser, an optical amplifier, and a high-speed (10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s) optical modulator. Agility has exclusive rights to widely tunable laser technology developed at the University of California (Santa Barbara) that is based on a unique architecture called Sampled Grating-Distributed Bragg Reflector (SG-DBR), which offers the best overall performance regarding wavelength tuning range, optical output power, linewidth, reliability, and suitability for integration. The compact, high-performance chip should dramatically reduce the size and cost of tunable transmitters, stimulating far more deployment of high-capacity networks. Because a single type of widely tunable laser could replace the many types now needed, the huge inventories of spares currently carried by networks could be reduced drastically and costs thereby reduced. In addition, cost-effective flexibility will be provided for provisioning services and bandwidths. Agility already has developed chips involving a 2.5 Gb/s electro-absorptive modulator, but a new modulator architecture will be used in the proposed high-performance device. Technical challenges include achieving materials and processing requirements for lasing, amplifying, and modulating in one chip, and making design trade-offs between laser and modulator architectures. The widely tunable SG-DBR laser could become the basic building block of light generation in PICs, a role similar to that of transistors in integrated circuits. Private investment funds are scarce because of the financial stresses on the networking industry. ATP support will accelerate research on the new chip and enable its production in time for the resurgence of capital spending expected several years from now. Overall, the new technology should strengthen U.S. telecommunications and optical networking industries and their competitiveness in the worldwide opto-electronics market.

For project information:

Heidi Groshelle, (415) 563-1893
heidi@trainerpr.com

ATP Project Manager

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