DARPA, AFRL Commissions Development Of Electroabsorption Modulator Technology
Pasadena, CA -- Phasebridge, Inc., a specialist in advanced photonic integration technologies, devices, and system solutions, announced a joint effort with University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to develop semiconductor electroabsorption modulator (EAM) technology for rugged, high-performance microwave links. The agreement between Phasebridge, UCSD, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories (AFRL), will enable the development of low cost and compact semiconductor optical modulators for high-performance fiber optic links in harsh environments.
Phasebridge designs and manufactures rugged and compact photonic hybrid chip-scale packaging and is a leading developer of optical devices and sub-systems for analog RF signal processing and fiber transmission. The UCSD research team, led by electrical engineering Professors Paul Yu and William S. C. Chang at the Jacobs School of Engineering, has pioneered novel EAM structures known as Intra-Step Quantum Wells (IQWs) and Peripheral-Coupled Waveguides (PCWs), which dramatically increase optical power handling capability, a critical factor for high-linearity analog RF optical systems. The combined research effort will advance the development of these EAMs for high performance microwave applications in extreme environments and will feature unprecedented linearity over very broad bandwidths. These modulators have applications in analog microwave fiber optic links for expanding markets in aerospace and defense, satellite earth stations, wireless antenna fiber optic remoting, and cable television transmission.
"We are very excited by the collaboration between our company and UCSD because it combines our practical optical packaging experience and capabilities with the latest advances in semiconductor structure technology," Phasebridge CTO Ron Logan noted. "The development and demonstration of these packaged EAM devices will enable high-linearity microwave fiber optic links that will greatly expand the capabilities of today's RF communications technology in both military and commercial applications."
Source: Phasebridge