SBIR Phase I: High Performance Electro-Optic Switches

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目将开发一个高性能的光开关。 光通信是现代通信产业中发展最快的技术，满足了市场对带宽不断增长的需求。光纤通信具有固有的不受检测/拦截和干扰的特性，这对于导弹防御任务尤其重要，例如激光雷达和其他军事通信。光开关是光通信中最关键的器件，也是目前最薄弱的环节。光开关技术需要一个技术突破，提出一个创新的解决方案，以克服目前的瓶颈，以最低的成本实现最先进的光开关。基于电光材料的最新突破，提出了一种极其简单但创新的器件结构，这种光开关将超越现有的任何解决方案，对光纤应用以及商业通信和光计算产生巨大的影响，这种低成本、高性能的光开关将在激光雷达、光纤传感系统和局域网等国防系统中有广泛的应用。它也将在商业通信市场中有很大的应用，其中光开关起着至关重要的作用。 这种设备的市场潜力巨大，预计到2006年将达到30亿美元。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a high performance optical switch. The optical communication is a fastest growing technology in modern communication industry meeting the ever-increase in market demand for bandwidth. Fiberoptic communication is inherently immune to detection/interception and jam, which is particularly important to missile defense missions, such as laser radar and other military communication. Optical switches are the most critical component in optical communication but yet the weakest part to date. Optical switch technology needs a breakthrough with technology that proposes an innovative solution to overcome the current bottleneck and achieve the state-of-the-art optical switch at the lowest cost. Based on the recent breakthrough of electro-optic material an extremely simple but innovative device architecture, the proposed optical switch will outperform any existing solutions and have a great impact to fiber-optic applications as well as commercial communication and optical computing.The low cost and high performance optical switch will have wide application in defense systems such as laser radar, fiber-optic sensor system, and local area networks. It will also have great application in commercial communication market where optical switches play a critical role. The market potential for such device is huge and is projected to reach $3 billion by year 2006.