C2020-50

About

The technology is transformative as it would enable the integration of complete sets of microwave and optical components; such as light sources, analog and digital signal processing circuits, light detectors, CMOS control circuits, and Silicon on Sapphire RF circuits; all-in-one platform to achieve high-performance and low-cost mixed signal optical links. It fundamentally addresses the most important technical challenges in Integrated Micro-Wave Photonics (IMWP). The foundation for integrated microwave photonics (IMWP), such as using silicon as a platform, is based on "leveraging." This includes taking advantage of (1) the mature silicon IC manufacturing for small features and large quantity with extremely low cost; and (2) the high index contrast between Si and SiO2 for strong optical confinement. While these have been compelling points for many years, it has been limited mostly by the absence of an effective monolithic on-chip laser. The current invention, to use sapphire as an IMWP platform, is an alternative platform to silicon that overcomes the limitations of integrated silicon microwave photonics with added benefits.