SBIR Phase II: Low-Voltage Poling of Waveguides in Nonlinear Optical Materials

这个SBIR二期项目将开发在磷酸钛基钾（KTP）中制造高质量周期性极化波导的加工步骤。周期极化波导可以实现高效、准相位匹配、非线性的连续波波长转换和高峰值功率准连续激光器。在第一阶段的工作中建立的制造工艺，利用低压脉冲结合新型电极配置，周期性地将极通道波导嵌入到KTP芯片中。使用标准的现成的KTP通道波导将显著提高产量，允许更大的设计灵活性，并降低制造成本，同时提供一个大的QPM转换效率，将实现一系列重要的商业应用。具体产品包括用于生物分析仪器和荧光光谱的脉冲和连续波红外二极管激光器的倍频，基于波导的差频混合模块，用于产生可调谐的窄带近红外源，用于环境监测，难以到达波长的光谱，以及通信网络中的全光开关。该项目将导致二极管激光器的高效倍频，这将对医疗，环境和科学应用产生有益的影响。在医疗领域，小型，低功耗，具有成本竞争力的可见激光器的可用性将使便携式生物分析仪器（例如床边流式细胞仪系统）的创建成为可能。在环境领域，小型廉价的光谱有用的红外源将使新的和改进的遥感系统成为可能。此外，在这项工作中开发的KTP波导技术有望为各种领域的先进研究做出贡献，包括超短脉冲波长转换，波导光学参量器件的开发以及量子光学研究中相关光子对的有效产生。

This SBIR Phase II project will develop the processing steps for the fabrication of highly quality periodically poled waveguides in potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP). Periodically poled waveguides enable highly efficient, quasi-phase matched (QPM), nonlinear optical wavelength conversion of continuous wave and high-peak power quasi- continuous lasers. The fabrication process, established during the Phase I effort, utilizes low-voltage pulses combined with a novel electrode configuration to periodically pole channel waveguides embedded in a KTP chip. The use of standard off-the-shelf KTP channel waveguides will significantly increase yields, allow greater design flexibility, and decrease manufacturing expenses while providing a large QPM conversion efficiency that will enable a range of commercially significant applications. Specific products include the frequency doubling of pulsed and continuous wave infrared diode lasers for use in bio- analytical instrumentation and fluorescent spectroscopy, waveguide-based difference frequency mixing modules for generating tunable, narrow band near-infrared sources for environmental monitoring, spectroscopy at hard-to-reach wavelengths, and all-optical switching in communication networks. This project should result in efficient frequency doubling of diode lasers, which will Have beneficial impacts in medical, environmental, and scientific applications. In the Medical field, the availability of small, low power consumption, cost-competitive visible Lasers will enable the creation of portable bio-analytical instrumentation (e.g. a bedside flow cytometry system). In the environmental field, small inexpensive spectroscopically useful infrared sources will enable new and improved remote sensing systems. Additionally, the KTP waveguide technology developed in this effort is expected to contribute to advanced research in a variety of fields including ultra short pulse wavelength conversion, development of waveguide optical parametric devices, and the efficient generation of correlated photon pairs for quantum optical studies.