SBIR Phase I: Silicon Photonic Optical Gyroscope using Planar Waveguide Coil and Integrated Photonics Circuit

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是提高自主系统的安全性和可靠性，并提供负担得起的高精度仪器。 由于部件成本高和大量的手工组装，高精度惯性导航设备的改进历来缓慢，系统价格实际上没有像大多数其他高科技产品那样下降，反而上升。 一个价格合理但高度精确的陀螺仪将在自主系统应用中打开一个价值100亿B美元的市场机会，它将为现有价值20亿B美元的高性能惯性导航市场提供颠覆性的、更紧凑的新技术。 可能的市场应用包括消费电子、汽车安全系统、工业机器人和国家安全系统的传感器。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一种新的三维氮化硅带隙波导，以实现小型、高精度的集成光学陀螺仪。 传统上，片上氮化硅波导是短厘米长度的结构，其光学损耗大约为每米100 dB，使得它们不适合制造长陀螺仪波导。 陀螺仪波导通常需要大于40米长的螺旋感测波导，以生成用于高性能操作的足够的Sagnac相位。 另外，在每个管芯适合更多感测区域的紧密间距波导与由相邻波导螺旋轨道之间的光学相位耦合产生的误差之间存在折衷。 该SBIR将展示一种新颖的3-D带隙结构和工艺方法，以密集封装超低损耗波导，与当今标准CMOS工艺中的传统氮化硅波导方法相比，该方法将使光损耗提高约400倍，波导密度提高4倍。 第一阶段的成果是小型集成光学陀螺仪以及其他需要低损耗片上光波导的光子器件的关键技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is improving the safety and reliability of autonomous systems with affordable high-precision instruments. Due to high component cost and extensive manual assembly, improvements in high-precision inertial navigation equipment has traditionally been slow, with system prices actually increasing instead of decreasing as in most other high-technology products. An affordable yet highly accurate gyroscope will open a $10 B market opportunity in autonomous systems applications, and it will provide disruptive, more compact new technology into the $2 B existing high-performance inertial navigation market. Possible market applications include sensors for consumer electronics, automotive safety systems, industrial robots, and national security systems.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a new 3-D Silicon Nitride bandgap waveguide to enable small, high-precision integrated optical gyroscopes. Traditionally, on-chip Silicon Nitride waveguides are short centimeter length structures with optical loss on the order of a 100 dB per meter making them unsuitable to fabricate long gyroscope waveguides. Gyroscope waveguides typically require a spiraled sensing waveguide greater than 40 meters long to generate the sufficient Sagnac Phase for performant operation. Additionally, there is a trade-off between tight pitch waveguides that fit more sensing area per die, and the errors generated from optical phase coupling between neighboring waveguide spiral tracks. This SBIR will demonstrate a novel 3-D bandgap structure and process methodology to densely pack an ultra-low loss waveguide that will enable an approximate 400x improvement in optical loss and a 4x improvement in waveguide density versus conventional Silicon Nitride waveguide approaches found in today’s standard CMOS process. The results of the Phase I is a key-enabling technology for small integrated optical gyroscopes as well as other photonic devices that require low loss on-chip optical waveguides.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.