Radiation Hard Fast Light Semiconductor Ring Laser Gyro

The purpose of our Phase I SBIR is to design, model and demonstrate a chip-size radiation hard rotation sensitive nonlinear semiconductor ring laser gyro. In conventional linear ring laser gyros, the sensitivity of the gyro to detect rotation motion is largely governed by the ring diameter. As the ring diameter increases the rotation sensitivity increases. This linear scaling property leads to necessarily large devices which are not appropriate for many systems that are weight and volume constrained but that require high sensitivity. Our innovative approach avoids this condition by exploiting nonlinear mode interactions which increases the rotational sensitivity by a factor of 100-1000 without increasing the gyro size. Theoretical calculations have shown that the rotation sensitivity of our proposed small chip size device far exceed performance parameters in comparable sized MEMS and other RLG devices and appear to avoid problems such as bias drift. We expect our device to be intrinsically radiation hard because of its monolithic semiconductor design. Proton and gamma-ray irradiations in accordance with MDA specified test levels goals will be conducted in Phase I to provide a demonstration of the device material and structure to meet near term MDA space qualification goals. The Phase I results will be used to fabricate prototype chip devices in Phase II which will undergo in-situ radiation hardness testing under dynamic conditions.