Photonics, Optics and Lasers

Since its inception in 1992, DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has helped create and prevent strategic surprise through investments in compact microelectronic components such as microprocessors, Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and photonic devices. MTO’s revolutionary work applying advanced capabilities in areas such as wide-band gap materials, phased array radars, high-energy lasers and infrared imaging have helped the United States establish and maintain technological superiority for more than two decades.

DARPA’s Electronic-Photonic Heterogeneous Integration (E-PHI) program has successfully integrated billions of light-emitting dots on silicon to create an efficient silicon-based laser. The breakthrough, achieved by researchers working on the program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), will enable the production of inexpensive and robust microsystems that exceed the performance capabilities of current technologies.

Radio Frequency and mixed signal electronics face performance limitations due to the limited circuit complexity possible in typical high-speed/high-dynamic-range compound semiconductor integrated circuit technologies. By integrating these high-performance electronics with deep submicron silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (Si CMOS) technology, designers can exploit the ultra large scale integration density of Si CMOS to combine complex signal processing and self-correction architectures with the highest performance compound semiconductor electronics, thus achieving unprecedented levels of performance (e.g. bandwidth, dynamic range, power consumption).

High performance optoelectronic systems, e.g. ultra low-noise lasers and optoelectronic signal sources, are employed in numerous applications such as fiber optic communications, high-precision timing references, LADAR, imaging arrays, etc. Current state-of-the-art ultra-low noise lasers and optoelectronic signal sources use macro-scale photonics for mechanical and thermal noise suppression, and off-chip electronics for feedback control. The benchtop or rack mount component-level assembly of these sources limits photonic coupling efficiency as well as the speed of electronic feedback, and also adds size and weight to the system. Integration of these components in a chip-scale form factor could greatly mitigate these limitations.

The DAHI Foundry Technology program thrust seeks to establish an accessible, manufacturable technology for device-level heterogeneous integration of a wide array of materials and devices (including, for example, multiple electronics and MEMS technologies) with complex silicon-enabled (e.g. CMOS) architectures on a common silicon substrate. of The DAHI Foundry Technology thrust will incorporate and build upon the heterogeneous integration technologies of the COSMOS and E-PHI program thrusts, while also developing new capabilities in heterogeneous integration processes, yield and circuit design innovation.