SBIR Phase I: Rare Earth Doped Polymer Optical Fiber Amplifiers

SBIR 第一阶段：稀土掺杂聚合物光纤放大器

• 批准号: 9961156
• 负责人: David Welker
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: Sentel Technologies L.L.C.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-01-01 至 2000-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9961156&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Rare; Earth; Doped

The goal of Phase I Small Business Innovation Research project is to demonstrate optical amplification in a single-mode polymer optical fiber. The technical objectives required to meet this goal include the following: 1) incorporate rare-earth chelates into polymers that we use to make fiber; 2) demonstrate amplification in the material; 3) make a polymer fiber with a rare-earth core; and 4) demonstrate amplification in the fiber. Because the principle investigator has the expertise to make single mode polymer optical fiber waveguides with a mode profile that matches the mode in standard silica glass fiber, the amplifier fiber is compatible with existing fiber-optic components. Besides applications for Phased Array Radar, Sentel's amplified single mode polymer fiber (APOF) will have impact on the long-haul fiber amplifier business, but it will have the largest impact in WAN and MAN applications, particularly for fiber-to-the-neighborhood (FTTN) and fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC). As the length-bandwidth products decrease (for smaller networks, e.g., WANs or MANs with fewer channels per fiber but perhaps more fibers), the revenue carried by lit fiber decreases and component costs become more important to the system designer. Thus, it should be clear that this technology could have significant impact on the amplifier market for WANs and MANs, and will also provide cost-effective amplifier solutions for (single-mode) LANs for the first time. This technology is also expected to provide cost-effective solutions for hybrid fiber-coax CATV systems for the same reasons.

第一阶段小企业创新研究项目的目标是展示单模聚合物光纤中的光放大。实现这一目标所需的技术目标包括：1）将稀土螯合物掺入我们用于制造光纤的聚合物中; 2）证明材料中的放大; 3）制造具有稀土芯的聚合物光纤;以及4）证明光纤中的放大。由于主要研究人员具有制造单模聚合物光纤波导的专业知识，其模式分布与标准石英玻璃光纤中的模式相匹配，因此放大器光纤与现有光纤组件兼容。除了相控阵雷达的应用外，Sentel的放大单模聚合物光纤（APOF）将对长途光纤放大器业务产生影响，但它将在WAN和MAN应用中产生最大的影响，特别是光纤到社区（FTTN）和光纤到路边（FTTC）。随着长度-带宽乘积的减小（对于较小的网络，例如，WAN或MAN每根光纤的通道较少，但可能有更多的光纤），照明光纤带来的收入减少，组件成本对系统设计人员来说变得更加重要。因此，应该清楚的是，这项技术可能会对WAN和MAN的放大器市场产生重大影响，并且还将首次为（单模）局域网提供具有成本效益的放大器解决方案。出于同样的原因，这项技术也有望为混合光纤同轴电缆CATV系统提供具有成本效益的解决方案。