"Micro- & Nano- Scale Guided Wave Photonic Devices for Optical Communication and Sensing"

Alan Xiaolong Wang, Ph.D.

Chief Research Scientist, Omega Optics, Inc.
Austin, Texas

Tuesday, March 1,2011, 3:30. Room 312, Rogers Bldg.

Abstract:

Guided wave photonic devices are playing important roles in optical communication and optical sensor systems. Optical waveguides using different materials particularly based on silicon and electro‐optic (E‐O) polymers, have been developed to demonstrate various photonic devices with enhanced functionalities. In this presentation, I will focus on several guided wave photonic devices with a large feature size range from 50μm to 75nm, and demonstrate their broad applications in board level optical interconnects, radio frequency (RF) photonic communication, electromagnetic wave sensing, and on‐chip infrared (IR) spectroscopy. I will show the state‐of‐the‐art design in nano‐photonic modulator using E‐O polymer infiltrated silicon photonic crystal slot waveguide with unprecedented efficiency, and experimental demonstration of 735pm/V in‐device E‐O coefficient and 0.44Vmm of VπL, which is ten times better than the best results of our competitors. This nano‐photonic device is also used as a highly sensitive on‐chip optical sensor for water quality monitoring and green house gas detection. Another photonic device is a Y‐fed directional coupler based on domain inverted E‐O polymer waveguide. Compared with LiNbO3 Mach‐Zehnder modulator, the device reduces the inter‐modulation distortion of the RF communication system by 22dB, and improves the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) by 11dB. It is also used as a robust electromagnetic attack sensor which is capable of detecting RF power from 0.32mW/cm2 to 59KW/ cm2. My presentation will also cover low optical loss multimode polymer waveguides for board level optical interconnects, which are fabricated by an innovative imprinting process using metallic templates. The multimode waveguides with 45°micro‐mirrors shows a very low propagation loss of 0.1dB/cm and demonstrate 150GHz optical bandwidth. The application of the molded polymer waveguides in a fully embedded board level optical interconnects will also be presented, including 10Gbps data transmission and an innovative bi‐directional optical bus architecture. In summary, guided wave photonic devices have demonstrated very high potential in many emerging fields, such as on‐chip optical interconnects, RF communication, biology sensing and detecting, and environmental protection.

BIO

Alan Xiaolong Wang received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in December, 2006. In January, 2007, he joined Omega Optics, Inc., where he worked as a research scientist and later was promoted to senior research scientist and chief research scientist position, respectively. His research interest covers board level optical interconnects, nano‐photonic devices, RF photonics, and optical sensing technologies including IR spectroscopy and Raman scattering for biomedical research and environmental protection. He has served as the Principal Investigators (PI) for nine Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transferring Research (STTR) projects, and Co‐PI for six of such projects, with research grants totaling over three million dollars. His research is sponsored by various funding agencies, including National Science Foundation (NSF), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), Army Research Office (ARO), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and National Institute of Health (NIH). He has 34 journal publications and 28 conference presentations (including 7 plenary/invited presentations), and also holds one U.S. patent. He is a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Optical Society of America (OSA), and International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). He served as program committee member and session chair for SPIE Photonic West conference in Optoelectronic Interconnects and Component Integration XI in 2010