A high-performance, low-cost multi-wavelength source and other advanced components based on a COEO

OEwaves, Inc. proposes to design (Phase I), fabricate, and demonstrate (Phase II) a novel multi-wavelength optical source - called a coupled opto-electronic oscillator (COEO) - for UDWDM communications applications. A single COEO simultaneously generates100 or more stable optical carriers on a precisely fixed grid that cannot drift (e.g. 25 GHz, 12.5 GHz, 1 GHz, or any other desired spacing) and will replace at significantly lower cost the entire array of semiconductor lasers and associated frequencystabilization circuitry found in conventional DWDM transmitter systems. The COEO is a versatile, multi-functional component that also fulfills other high-performance UDWDM applications, including all-optical clock recovery, digital and analog datarecovery, and ultra-high spectral purity master optical clock synchronization and RF clock generation.This SBIR project will leverage and extend technology developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and licensed exclusively to OEwaves. We will focus on transforming the basic design concept proven at JPL-embodied in shoebox-sized benchtop prototypes builtfrom discrete optics-into an integrated device that consumes less than 500 mW, fits in a conventional microelectronic package, tolerates vibration and shock, requires no input other than power, and lends itself to low-cost automated production.Thefinished COEO will dramatically improve the performance-cost curve for UDWDM transmitter and receiver architectures and disrupt the projected evolutionary development of fiber optic communications systems. The COEO will enable telecom providers and themilitary to allocate both analog and digital data channels packed as densely as desired-limited only by the inherent bandwidth of the information each channel carries-and thus extract maximum economic value from existing installed fiber capacity as well asnew links. In addition to enabling radically new systems, the COEO will also be compatible with, and have the potential to enhance, conventional UDWDM design concepts that are currently under active development.We will fabricate the COEO from just two fundamental base elements, a glass submillimeter microspherical resonator and a two-electrode MQW buried heterostructure amplifier chip. In various configurations these two elements can perform many additionalfunctions needed in a complete UDWDM system. Other early novel devices include high-Q channel dropping filters and wavelength converters.In Phase III, OEwaves will first market the COEO as a component for DWDM and high-speed RF electronics systems and we anticipate annual revenues of $75M in 2006. Later we will introduce complete UDWDM modules and systems.