SBIR Phase II: Low-Voltage Poling of Waveguides in Nonlinear Optical Materials

This SBIR Phase II project will develop the processing steps for the fabrication of highly quality periodically poled waveguides in potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP). Periodically poled waveguides enable highly efficient, quasi-phase matched (QPM), nonlinear optical wavelength conversion of continuous wave and high-peak power quasi- continuous lasers. The fabrication process, established during the Phase I effort, utilizes low-voltage pulses combined with a novel electrode configuration to periodically pole channel waveguides embedded in a KTP chip. The use of standard off-the-shelf KTP channel waveguides will significantly increase yields, allow greater design flexibility, and decrease manufacturing expenses while providing a large QPM conversion efficiency that will enable a range of commercially significant applications. Specific products include the frequency doubling of pulsed and continuous wave infrared diode lasers for use in bio- analytical instrumentation and fluorescent spectroscopy, waveguide-based difference frequency mixing modules for generating tunable, narrow band near-infrared sources for environmental monitoring, spectroscopy at hard-to-reach wavelengths, and all-optical switching in communication networks. This project should result in efficient frequency doubling of diode lasers, which will Have beneficial impacts in medical, environmental, and scientific applications. In the Medical field, the availability of small, low power consumption, cost-competitive visible Lasers will enable the creation of portable bio-analytical instrumentation (e.g. a bedside flow cytometry system). In the environmental field, small inexpensive spectroscopically useful infrared sources will enable new and improved remote sensing systems. Additionally, the KTP waveguide technology developed in this effort is expected to contribute to advanced research in a variety of fields including ultra short pulse wavelength conversion, development of waveguide optical parametric devices, and the efficient generation of correlated photon pairs for quantum optical studies.