Tunable Opto-electronic Oscillator Based on Photonic Integration of Ultra-High Q Resonators on a SiN Chip

The team comprising OEwaves Inc. and UC Davis offers to develop and demonstrate a SiN-platform integrated photonic circuit suitable for a spectrally pure chip-scale tunable opto-electronic RF oscillator (OEO) that can operate as a flywheel in high precision optical clock modules, as well as radio astronomy, spectroscopy, and local oscillator in radar and communications systems. The effort comprises integration of an ultra-high quality (Q) crystalline whispering gallery mode (WGM) microresonator with multiple lithographically defined photonic and electronic components and devices (including a laser, a detector and waveguides) on a single platform with nanometer-scale feature sizes. The proposed oscillator will be packaged in a volume of approximately 1cc, with net power consumption of less than 500 mW. The oscillator will produce a minimum of 10 mW of output RF power in Ka frequency band, and its single sideband (SSB) phase noise will be as low as -60 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz, and -160 dBc at 1 MHz and higher Fourier frequencies.

The proposed technology is suitable for designing chip-scale tunable OEO and high precision optical clock modules particularly critical for small spacecraft platforms.

Civilian: air traffic control (ATC) radar; GPS systems; satellite video mobile arrays; point-to-point microwave radio wireless data backhaul systems; local multi-point distribution service (LMDS) base stations; high-bandwidth terrestrial and space communications systems; scientific and test equipment. Military: phased array radar systems, including ship-based multi-functional phased arrays, large phased arrays for national ballistic missile defense, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and mobile arrays for battlefield and regional missile defense systems; onboard guidance systems for interceptor missiles; high-bandwidth terrestrial and space communications systems; Electronic Warfare (EW), Electronic Counter-Counter Measure (ECCM) and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) systems; radar test equipment.

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