Integrated Optical Thresholder Function for Use in Optical Analog to Digital Converters (OADCs)

ABSTRACT: Aurrion and Lockheed Martin will create an optical thresholding component that can be monolithically integrated in a silicon-substrate-based photonic integrated circuit (PIC) platform. The ultimate goal is to realize PICs that can contain these nonlinear components in the same chip with other active (e.g. lasers, modulators, detectors) and passive (e.g. filters, delay lines, routing waveguides) components. The key innovations are in the concepts to enable the nonlinear effects on the established III-V-Silicon heterogeneous integration platform. BENEFIT: Aurrion will work with Lockheed Martin to demonstrate an all optical thresholder device using integrated silicon photonics. These components could be integrated with other optical components on a single platform to create fast, low power, compact and environmentally robust Optical Analog to Digital Converters (OADCs), an enabling technology for a scalable optical sensor network.