Hybrid and Heterogeneous Integration of PICs for RF Photonic Imaging Systems

The spectrum for commercial mobile communications and wireless networks now extends well into the millimeter-wave (mmW) region and, as a result, it is imperative that military systems also begin to exploit this region of the spectrum. However, at present there is no scalable RF technology that can offer such wide operational bandwidth while maintaining compatibility with legacy systems. Therefore, the goal of the proposed effort is to establish a new paradigm for the design, development, and application of broadband RF phased array antenna systems whose performance is based on spatial perception (i.e., imaging), which serves to enable software defined multi-function operation. Much exploration has been performed in the area of co-packaged optics for datacom applications by fortune 100 companies such as Microsoft and Facebook, and the technique has emerged as the primary path for integration of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and electronics. This proposal seeks to pioneer co-packaged optics in RF Photonic applications, through hybrid and heterogeneous integration. Consolidating the source, modulator, and routing PICs all into one system will drastically reduce SWAP-C in state-of-the-art RF communications and imaging systems. Furthermore, combining these systems with electronic circuits would compose an “RF system in package”, analogous to those developed for datacom applications. Novel heterogeneous and hybrid integration techniques will be explored for realizing the described packaging and integration. Also, in-depth technical discussions will be undertaken with Satellite Communication vendors to elucidate the system improvements that can be had with previously and concurrently developed systems at PSI. The team will work with The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to develop recipes for heterogeneous and hybrid integration, which will later be used to integrate one of PSI’s RF imaging systems onto a chip-scale platform. The program will culminate in the demonstration of electronic and photonic IC integration on a single interposer.