Epitaxial Liftoff for an Integrated MEMS-Optoelectronic Optical Read-Write Pick-up Head

The objective of this effort is to develop a high data rate, lightweight, low cost optical read-write head combining epitaxial liftoff integration of opto-electronics with MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology. Lifted-off thin film lasers and photodetectors, unlike their bulk counterparts, are light enough to allow rapid motion and positioning by MEMS actuators. MEMS allows new technology options and recent achievements have shown that it can easily replace bulk lenses in tiny optical systems for memory and communications. By using ELO to integrate the opto-electronic components directly onto the MEMS components, a high efficiency, low cost, compact, multifunctional optical pickup head can be constructed. Such a module can also contain local CMOS processing circuitry for pre-processing of data, error correction, and associative memory at the pick-up head. BENEFITS: This effort shall produce a prototype high-speed, lightweight read-write head for optical memory and communications. It will enable CMOS processing on the optical head for local error correction and associative memory.