The Department of Defense is investigating photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for applications including microwave photonics, LiDAR, chemical and biological sensing, high-speed datacommunication, free-space optical communication, and quantum communication and sensing. Here, we highlight some current PIC research efforts at DoD laboratories that target these applications.
We present results for ultra-low noise integrated lasers based on the Silicon Photonics platform with heterogeneous integration of III-V gain material. Innovative designs enabled by ultra-low loss waveguides, novel multiple microresonator-based reflectors, and extended Bragg reflectors, provide record results for linewidth and tuning range.
A novel, compact, on-chip spectrometer based on cascaded EG, multiple AWGs as well as PIC foundry compatible components was designed and analyzed. The proposed device operates in the spectral range of 1050 nm -1250 nm, 0.5 nm resolution, -30dB cross talk and 400 output channels.
We demonstrate a monolithically integrated compact ITO electro-optic modulator in silicon on insulator photonics based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer featuring a high-performance half-wave voltage and active device length product of Vpi*L = 0.52 V-mm.