SBIR Phase I: Non-Destructive Inspection Techniques to Significantly Improve the Manufacturability of KTP Waveguides

This Small Business Innovative Research project explores the feasibility of developing a manufacturing process that will both increase the rate of production and improve the yield of high quality waveguides in potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP). Waveguides in KTP are ideally suited for use in a wide variety of commercially significant laser-based applications, however, their widespread use has been limited due to cost and time associated with the current manufacturing methodology. The key innovation in this effort is to combine recent advances in non-destructive incoming wafer inspection with existing wafer level lithographic processing to increase the area for uniform waveguide fabrication (increased production). KTP waveguide technology has contributed to cutting edge research in a variety of fields including short pulse generation, wavelength stabilization and conversion, and photonics based quantum information science. Immediate commercial applications include pulsed and cw laser diode conversion to produce visible wavelengths for biomedical instrumentation. Low cost waveguides will also help enable new and emerging opportunities associated with quantum information science and secure communications, analog photonic circuits, and rapidly tunable Bragg stabilized diodes.