SBIR Phase II: Micromachined Planar Single Pixel Photomultiplier Tube (PMT)

该小型企业创新研究(SBIR)二期项目专注于生产一种微型光电倍增管，用于检测光纤网络上传输的光信号，并用作芯片实验室和DNA测序系统中化学传感的板载高速光学检测。用于数字和模拟数据传输和模拟传感器的集成光学器件可以受益于高速微型光电探测器(1 GHz)。固态探测器具有非常高的带宽或高增益，但不能同时具有这两种特性。高(1,000)个探测器以低功率、高速和大动态范围工作，并且可以集成到硅电路上，这将是有价值的，特别是作为光纤接收器和传感器。提出了一种采用二次电子发射增益的微机械真空光电倍增管--平面微机械光电倍增管。这样的设备将制造出一种卓越的芯片级可积高增益光纤(FO)接收器，能够大幅降低千兆位/S激光二极管FO发射机的功率性能要求，这是超高速广域网的成本障碍。这样的设备还将使化学、生化和医疗诊断的现场便携式测试设备成为可能。如果该项目成功，它将为电信网络带来一种革命性的新型光纤传感器。芯片上的生物医学和化学分析实验室还有其他商业应用，其中高速光学探测器可以彻底改变快速分析，如DNA筛查或化学或毒素识别。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on producing a miniature photomultiplier for detection of light signals traveling on fiber-optic networks and for use as on-board high speed optical detection for chemical sensing in lab-on-a-chip and DNA sequencing systems. Integrated optics for digital and analog data transmission and analog sensors can benefit from the high-speed miniature photodectors (1 GHz). Solid state detectors are available with very high bandwidth or high gain, but not both simultaneously. A high (1,000) detector operated at low power with high speed and large dynamic range, and that could be integrated onto a silicon circuit would have value, especially as a fiber-optic receiver and sensor. We propose a micromachined vacuum photomultiplier employing dynode secondary electron emission gain, a Planar Micromachined PhotoMultiplier Tube (PMPMT). Such a device would make a superior chip-scale integrable high gain fiber-optic (FO) receiver, capable of substantially lowering the power performance requirements of gigabit/s laser diode FO transmitters, the cost-barrier to ultra-high speed WAN networks. Such a device would also enable truly field portable test equipment for chemical, biochemical and medical diagnostics. If this project is successful it could usher in a revolutionary new fiber optic sensor for telecommunciations networks. Additional commercial applications exist in biomedical and chemical analysis labs-on-a-chip where a high speed optical detector can revolutionize rapid analyses such as DNA screening or chemical or toxin identification.