CMOS Compatible Optical Leaky Wave Antennas and Devices

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ABSTRACTObjective: The objective of this research is to develop CMOS compatible electronically controlled leaky wave optical antennas, based on planar dielectric waveguides with a set of silicon perturbations. Distributed electronic tuning of various parameters like permittivity and losses in all the semiconductor perturbations results in controlling the propagation phase and attenuation constants of the leaky wave radiation, and hence the output radiation power and profile.Intellectual Merit: The proposed research leads to highly directive optical antennas with tunable capabilities, that require a single feed point, instead of resorting to optical arrays that require a large number of electronically controlled optical waveguides and relative phase shifts. The intellectual merit of the proposed research lies in achieving this goal by using a dielectric waveguide with semiconductor perturbations in which the tuning of the carrier concentrations leads to tunable leaky wave radiation.Broader Impact: The proposed research will eventually lead to fast electronic control of the power radiated, enabling the development of novel optical modulators and switches. CMOS compatibility, integrated electronic control, low cost and possible system integration are key attributes of the proposed photonic devices, with applications in optical communications, microwave photonics and chip scale optical sensing. The educational outreach activities aim at making this subject accessible and attractive to a broad audience through live demonstrations, public lab tours, and web based distant learning tools. In particular, preparation of special demonstrations and summer programs will attract traditionally under-represented groups and facilitate the increase of enrollments to the physical sciences and engineering nationwide.