Polarization Maintaining Coherent Fiber Bundle Array

Future NASA flight missions are considering passive wavefront and amplitude control in astronomical applications such as the search for exo-planets. NASA's Discovery mission proposal called out the need for a coherent 2-dimensional array of fiber bundles for this application. In this SBIR proposal we propose to develop monolithic polarization maintaining (PM) coherent fiber bundle arrays consisting of 1,600 fibers with core-to-core spacing of 80 micron with placement accuracy of < 2 micron. In Phase I we will design and develop specialty glasses and fibers and demonstrate a 2D array with 16 cores to prove the feasibility of this proposal.

There are a number of potential non-NASA commercial applications for polarization maintaining coherent fiber bundle. This monolithic fiber bundle can be used for imaging especially integrated with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor, for high resolution two-photon microscope, for volumetric endoscopic coherence microscopy, for fiber laser array, for fiber amplifier array, and for other research and development.

Future NASA flight missions are considering passive wavefront and amplitude control (spatial filtering) in astronomical applications such as the search for exo-planets. NASA's Discovery mission proposal called out the need for a coherent 2-dimensional array of fiber bundles for this application. Polarization maintaining single mode fiber coherent bundle acts as an array of both amplitude and wavefront spatial filters for both astronomical and Earth sciences applications.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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