Silicon photonics lasers created from printed nanomaterial inks

Silicon photonics is an enabling technology platform impacting Air Force applications in optical communications, to microwave photonics for aircraft systems, and emerging areas including LIDAR and drone sensing. All of these applications are evolving from bulky optical systems towards photonic integrated circuits(PICs). In addition to the benefit of reduction in size, weight, power, and cost(SWAP-C), PICs leverage the tremendous investment made into semiconductor manufacturing for electronics. Unfortunately, silicon photonics today lacks a laser that is incorporated into standard foundry manufacturing. Without a solution to this ‘silicon laser problem’, the promise of high volume photonic chips will remain a distant dream. To overcome this challenge, Iris Light Technologies is developing a hybrid silicon-nanomaterial laser for incorporation into silicon manufacturing via wafer-scale additive manufacturing techniques. The goal of this DoD STTR program is to develop printable nanomaterial emitter inks for silicon photonics. In Phase I, Iris and Boise State University (BSU) will leverage contacts at AFRL to determine the appropriate AF customer and AF End-user for running the Phase II field trial. In Phase II, Iris and BSU will develop nanomaterial photonic inks, print them on commercially-produced silicon foundry substrates, and demonstrate lasing, thereby delivering a laser prototype to the Air Force.