By leveraging advanced wafer processing and flip-chip bonding techniques, we have succeeded in hybrid integrating a
myriad of active optical components, including photodetectors and laser diodes, with our planar lightwave circuit (PLC)
platform. We have combined hybrid integration of active components with monolithic integration of other critical
functions, such as diffraction gratings, on-chip mirrors, mode-converters, and thermo-optic elements. Further process
development has led to the integration of polarization controlling functionality. Most recently, all these technological
advancements have been combined to create large-scale planar lightwave circuits that comprise hundreds of optical
elements integrated on chips less than a square inch in size.
We present innovations in Planar Lightwave Circuits (PLCs) that make them ideally suited for use in advanced defense
and aerospace applications. We discuss PLCs that contain no micro-optic components, no moving parts, pose no spark
or fire hazard, are extremely small and lightweight, and are capable of transporting and processing a range of optical
signals with exceptionally high performance. This PLC platform is designed for on-chip integration of active
components such as lasers and detectors, along with transimpedance amplifiers and other electronics. These active
components are hybridly integrated with our silica-on-silicon PLCs using fully-automated robotics and image
recognition technology. This PLC approach has been successfully applied to the design and fabrication of multi-channel
transceivers for aerospace applications. The chips contain hybrid DFB lasers and high-efficiency detectors, each capable
of running over 10 Gb/s, with mixed digital and analog traffic multiplexed to a single optical fiber. This highlyintegrated
functionality is combined onto a silicon chip smaller than 4 x 10 mm, weighing < 5 grams. These chip-based
transceivers have been measured to withstand harsh g-forces, including sinusoidal vibrations with amplitude of 20 g
acceleration, followed by mechanical shock of 500 g acceleration. The components operate over a wide range of
temperatures, with no device failures after extreme temperature cycling through a range of > 125 degC, and more than
2,000 hours operating at 95 degC ambient air temperature. We believe that these recent advancements in planar
lightwave circuits are poised to revolutionize optical communications and interconnects in the aerospace and defense
industries.
A long range surface plasmon polaritons Bragg grating is investigated by a complex mode matching method. A high
order finite difference method is employed to find the complex eigenmodes. Benefited from the cascading and doubling
algorithm, the computation effort is significantly saved for Bragg gratings with large number of periods. Numerical
results are verified by previous reported experiments.
For realization of highly integrated optical circuits, various metallic nanostructures supporting the propagation of surface
plasmon polaritons have been extensively studied experimentally and theoretically in recent years. This paper reports on
the development of a numerically stable and accurate finite-difference-based bidirectional beam propagation method
(FD-BiBPM) for analyzing piecewise z-invariant plasmonic structures. Our method is developed based on the scattering
operators. The adoption of complex coefficient rational approximations to the square root operator allows to correctly
model the propagation of evanescent modes excited at discontinuity interfaces. In view of the large index contrast at
metal-dielectric interfaces, a fourth-order accurate finite difference formulation for discretization is incorporated to the
present method and its fine treatment of these interfaces guarantees accuracy. By using the present method, the reflection
and transmission spectra of the Bragg gratings consisting of a thin metal film embedded in dielectric medium and an
array of equidistant metal ridges on each side of the film are calculated. The good agreement of our results with the
previously reported simulations illustrates the potential of the newly developed FD-BiBPM for the analysis of longrange
surface plasmon polariton (LRSPP) waves guided along the described Bragg gratings.
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