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Integrated Ultra-High Performance Graphene Optical Modulator

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Air Force
Contract: FA9550-19-P-0004
Agency Tracking Number: F18A-003-0135
Amount: $149,990.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: STTR
Solicitation Topic Code: AF18A-T003
Solicitation Number: 18.A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2018
Award Year: 2019
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2019-02-15
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2020-02-15
Small Business Information
8500 Shoal Creek Blvd. Bldg. 4, Suite 200
Austin, TX 78757
United States
DUNS: 102861262
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: Yes
Principal Investigator
 Hamed Dalir
 Research Scientist, PhD
 (512) 996-8833
 hamed.dalir@omegaoptics.com
Business Contact
 Ray Chen
Phone: (512) 996-8833
Email: ray.chen@omegaoptics.com
Research Institution
 George Washington University
 Gloria Chen Gloria Chen
 
Science & Engineering Hall, North Wing 5900 800 22nd Street, NW
Washington DC, DC 20052
United States

 (512) 996-8833
 Nonprofit College or University
Abstract

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims at developing a commercially viable, ten microns long graphene optical modulator laterally integrated with a silicon waveguide and optical light source for large bandwidth optical communication and computing applications such as supercomputers, data centers and so on. Compared to the conventional optical modulators, graphene modulators have attracted great interests due to their high speed operation with an ultra-compact foot-print and broadband operation. However, due to poor overlap of optical fields with graphene layers, their practical applications are limited by the trade-off between modulation speed and energy per bit power consumption. Here we propose a graphene optical modulators based on the distributed Bragg reflector waveguide design which new avenues for strengthening graphene-light interactions into the device with an extremely low loss. The Bragg reflector waveguide provides a factor of > 40 reduction in interaction length compared to conventional waveguides leading to enhance the optical absorption with a shorter modulator length. This design promises an ultra-high operation with few Femtojoule per bit power consumption in entire C- and L- bands. The CMOS compatible platform will ensure high volume and low cost production of devices.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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