U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership - Visible Light-wave Generation and Manipulation through Non-Linear Waveguide Technology (VIBRANT)

可见光波，特别是绿色光波，在功能和小型化光子集成电路中的产生和操作，目前对生物光子应用具有重要的兴趣，作为询问和表征人体组织的手段，以便快速诊断或治疗各种疾病，并有望大大改善医疗保健。目前用于这些应用的最先进的光学设备笨重、不灵活且昂贵。利用在数据和电信领域实现光子集成电路的技术进步，这项国际合作研究将通过在厘米级芯片上实现全光学系统提供低成本的解决方案。该研究项目将由美国俄亥俄州立大学、爱尔兰贝尔法斯特皇后大学、科克大学和明斯特理工大学共同开展。该项目的成功将使各种光子技术取得重大进展，包括通过芯片上的传感系统实现鲁棒性、可扩展性、化学和生物传感，这反过来又将对传感领域产生影响。所提出的集成绿色光子电路涉及一种包含许多集成器件的新架构，从而实现芯片上的密集光子集成。该项目还将重点关注国际合作、本科生研究以及对科学、技术、工程和数学领域的职业感兴趣的高中生。参与该项目的研究生和博士后将与这四个机构的访问团队成员共同进行实验。研究人员亦计划安排学生进行短期交流访问，以促进研究经验的交流及合作的发展。这个美国-爱尔兰合作研究项目的目标是通过非线性波导技术研究可见光的产生和操纵，以实现功能光子集成电路（PICs）。本文的主要研究目标是开发绿色波段的PIC技术平台。为了实现这一技术突破，该项目将把用于二次谐波产生的材料与氮化硅波导和红外III-V泵浦激光器共同集成，以实现芯片上绿光的产生。该项目将使用片上连续波gaas激光器，发射波长为1062 nm，激发高q铌酸锂（LN）环形谐振器，随后产生二次谐波（531 nm）。其他新的脉冲激光沉积非线性材料将被研究、开发和表征为有效的上转换。该集成技术将利用转移打印技术将非线性材料与具有低损耗波导的泵浦激光器进行瞬变和端火耦合。将开发新颖的lnpic设计、制造和混合集成工艺。我们将探索这些非线性材料的模态相位匹配和基于周期性极点的准相位匹配技术，以比较每种方法的有效性。在实现高二次谐波产生/可见转换效率方面，将研究无轮询模态相位匹配技术的局限性。如果成功，这种PIC技术将提供引人注目的尺寸、重量、功率和降低成本的优势，并在传感、安全、医疗、研究和通信等领域实现广泛的新兴应用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Visible Light-wave, particularly green, generation and manipulation in a functional and miniaturized photonic integrated circuit is currently of significant interest for biophotonic applications as means to interrogate and characterize human tissue in order to rapidly diagnose or treat various illnesses with the promise of much improved healthcare. Current state-of-the-art optics for these applications are cumbersome, inflexible and costly. Leveraging the technological advancement made for implementing photonic integrated circuits in data- and telecommunication, this international collaborative research will provide a low-cost solution by realizing full optical systems on a centimeter-scale chip. The research project will be carried out between the US-The Ohio State University, and Ireland- Queens University Belfast, University College Cork and Munster Technological University. The success of this project will make significant advancements in a variety of photonic technologies, including robust, scalable, chemical and biological sensing via sensing systems on a chip that in turn, will have impact on the fields of sensing. The proposed integrated green photonic circuits involve a new architecture incorporating many integrated devices, leading to dense photonic integration on chip. This project will also place a strong emphasis on international collaboration, undergraduate research, and outreach to high school students who are interested in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Graduate students and postdocs working on this project will perform joint experiments with visiting team members from these four institutions. The researchers also plan to include a short exchange visit for the students to facilitate the exchange of research experiences as well as the development of collaborations.The goal of this US-Ireland collaborative research project is to study visible light-wave generation and manipulation through non-linear waveguide technology to realize functional photonic integrated circuits (PICs). The primary research objective is to develop a PIC technology platform in the green spectral band. To enable this technological breakthrough, the project will co-integrate the materials for second harmonic generation with silicon nitride waveguides and infrared III-V pump lasers to allow the generation of green-light on-chip. The project will use an on-chip continuous-wave GaAs-laser emitting at 1062 nm to excite a high-Q lithium niobate (LN) ring resonator and subsequently generate the second harmonic (531 nm). Other new pulsed laser deposited- non-linear materials will be studied, developed, and characterized for efficient up-conversion. The integration technology will utilize transfer printing to evanescently and end-fire couple the non-linear materials and pump lasers with the low-loss waveguides. Novel LN PIC designs, fabrication and hybrid integration processes will be developed. We will explore modal phase matching and periodic poling-based quasi phase matching techniques on these non-linear materials to compare effectiveness of each of these methods. The limits of the poll-free modal phase matching technique in terms of achieving high second harmonic generation/visible conversion efficiency will be investigated. If successful, this PIC technology will offer compelling size, weight, power and cost reduction advantages and enable a wide range of emerging application in areas including sensing, security, medical, research and communication.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.