TECHNOLOGY
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Description
PLANEX™ laser design is based on RIO's proprietary
planar technology and consists of a gain chip and a
Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) with Bragg grating which
together form a laser cavity. This structure has
significant advantages such as: narrow spectral linewidth,
low phase noise, low chirp, and low wavelength sensitivity
to temperature and bias current.
Planar Lightwave Circuits (PLC)
Physical and optical properties of silica are well
controlled during the manufacturing process on large
diameter wafers. Silica provides good process control,
uniformity of refractive indexes, repeatability of
parameters and low sensitivity to temperature.
Bragg grating fabrication can be achieved with direct
etching or UV writing in Ge-doped silica waveguides,
according to RIO's proprietary processes.
Hybrid Packaging Technology
RIO's PLANEX™ laser consists of the combination of
two sub-components:
- InP gain chip
- PLC (Planar Lightwave Circuit). Bragg gratings on the
PLC determines wavelength of external cavity laser.
The hybrid integration of these sub-components results
in a high performance and lower cost products that matches
or exceeds the performance of more complicated and higher
cost lasers.
The novelty of RIO's approach includes:
- use of semiconductor process technology to build
planar Bragg gratings on PLC rather than in fiber
- new hybrid integration technology to assemble
optical components
- unique design technology to add significant performance
advantages.
Integration
RIO's laser has a path to integration in both parallel
form (multiple wavelengths on the same chip) and
functional form (additional component functionality) on
the same platform. This integration opportunity is not
available to all InP semiconductor lasers. Parallel
integration reduces the sequence of discrete manufacturing
steps and parts, necessary to provide equivalent
functionality. RIO also holds patent protected low
temperature PECVD technology, a path to integration with
CMOS electronics.
Low-cost
RIO technology dramatically alters the price-performance
tradeoff currently faced by optoelectronic industry,
delivering " high performance at low cost".
For fiber optic sensing, RIO PLANEX™ laser combines
the simplicity and low cost of semiconductor lasers with
the high performance of fiber lasers for commercial and
military fiber optic sensor applications including
interferometric sensor arrays with high sensor counts.
For Telecom and Datacom, RIO PLANEX™ TOSA combines
high performance, comparable with externally modulated
lasers, with the low cost and simplicity of directly
modulated lasers.
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