Program Summary
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. While silicon is an attractive integration platform due to its capabilities in both electronics and photonics, the indirect bandgap of silicon precludes its use for efficient optical emission. One possible approach to enable high performance optoelectronics on low-cost silicon platform is to heterogeneously integrate III-V photonics with silicon to include efficient III-V optical emitters and other photonic devices with the silicon electronic and photonic platform.
E-PHI seeks to develop the necessary technologies, architectures and design innovations to enable novel chip-scale electronic-photonic/mixed-signal integrated circuits on a common silicon substrate. It is envisioned that E-PHI technology will enable a wide range of novel chip-scale optoelectronic microsystems, including coherent optical systems for sensing (LADAR) and communications, optical arbitrary waveform generators and multi-wavelength imagers with integrated image processing and readout circuitry. To validate the feasibility and viability of electronic-photonic heterogeneous integration technology, E-PHI aims to demonstrate novel high-performance heterogeneous electronic-photonic integrated microsystems. It is anticipated that these E-PHI demonstrator microsystems will provide considerable performance improvement and size reduction versus current, state-of-the-art technologies.
E-PHI efforts began in November, 2011.
Major teams currently participating in E-PHI are led by the following organizations:
- Aurrion, Inc. (Goleta, CA)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
- University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
- University of California, San Diego (La Jolla, CA)