OSSC Online Webinar
April 7, 2021, 6:00pm

“Recent Advances in Thin-film Lithium Niobate Integrated Photonics”

Professor Sasan Fathpour, CREOL, College of Optics & Photonics

Univ.  Central Florida, Orlando, FL

The excellent electrooptic and nonlinear-optical properties of lithium niobate have long established it as a prevailing photonic material for the long-haul telecom modulator and wavelength-converter markets.  However, conventional lithium niobate optical waveguides are low index-contrast, and hence bulky compared to modern integrated platforms such as silicon photonics.  The bulkiness impedes photonic circuit implementations and imposes high optical power requirements for nonlinear applications.
 

To address these shortcomings, thin-film lithium niobate wafers and high-contrast waveguides (with submicron cross-sectional dimensions) were developed for the first time at CREOL in 2013.  Since then, we have demonstrated a plethora of ultracompact integrated photonic devices and circuits (waveguides, microring resonators, modulators, grating couplers, wavelength converters, entangled photon sources, etc.) with significantly superior performances than the conventional lithium niobate counterparts.

More recently, commercial availability of the thin-film wafers has facilitated entering of several other research teams into this growing field.  The overall efforts have rejuvenated lithium niobate for novel electrooptic and nonlinear- and quantum-optic applications and the material is considered among the top candidates for heterogeneous integrated photonics.  That is when multiple materials are monolithically integrated on the same silicon chip, while each material is chosen for the functionalities that suits it best.
Progress in thin-film lithium niobate integrated photonics, its future directions, opportunities and challenges will be discussed

Online OSSC Webinar
March 17, 2021, 5:30 pm

“Recent Advances in Freeform Optics”

Professors Thomas Suleski & Matthew Davies

 University of North Carolina at Charlotte

 
Tom Suleski

 
Matt Davies

Freeform optics provide additional design freedoms that enable new functionality, improved optical performance, and reduced system size and weight, but also introduce numerous challenges for design, manufacturing, and measurement. Towards these challenges, the authors have conducted research in the area for over fifteen years, and the NSF I/UCRC Center for Freeform Optics (CeFO) was founded in 2013 to further advance research and education in the science, engineering, and applications of freeform optics through dedicated industry/university partnerships.

In this talk, we first provide a brief introduction to freeform optics and an overview of the Center for Freeform Optics. Selected research projects will then be highlighted, with particular emphasis on manufacturing, testing, and applications for freeform optical components and systems.
Online OSSC Webinar
February 10, 2021, 6:00pm

“Extreme Optical Metamaterials and Applications”

Professor Nader Engheta,
Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Metamaterials and metasurfaces have provided various exciting functionalities in nanophotonics, nano-optics, and microwave technologies.  These include far-reaching possibilities in achieving “extremes” in wave performance, for example, negative- and near-zero index of refraction have been investigated.

As one of the research programs in my group, currently we are exploring how extreme metamaterials can give us new platforms in metaphotonics for exploiting waves to do certain useful mathematical operations with waves. In my group we have been developing metastructure platforms that can perform analog computation such as solving integral and differential equations and inverting matrices with waves as waves interact with them.  Such “metamaterial machines” can function as wave-based analog computing machines, suitable for micro- and nanoscale integration.

Another research program in my group deals with the near-zero-index (NZI) media in which the effective relative permittivity and/or relative permeability can attain near-zero values around the operating frequencies of interest.  In such NZI structures, effective wavelength “stretches”, and consequently numerous unprecedented wave phenomena emerge. In this talk I will present some of our ongoing work on extreme material platforms for metaphotonics, and will forecast possible future research in these directions.

Wednesday
Jan 13, 2021
6:30 PM

"MicroSat Laser Communication Terminals & IR Imaging Space-Based Payloads”

Dr. Aaron Freeman, Optical Engineering Manager,

General Atomics EMS, San Diego, CA

The electromagnetic spectrum is crowded and the data rates are low compared to Free Space Optical systems (FSO). System designers are turning to FSO to overcome the RF limitations. General Atomics Electromagnetics (GA-EMS) has developed a free space optical laser communication terminal (LCT) for space applications.  The system operates at 1550 nm and utilizes on-off keying to support a data rate of up to 5 Gbps.

The system architecture is expandable regarding total output power and can support links from various orbits up to and including GEO-GEO as predicted from the amplifier testing and link budget analysis.  The optical amplifier is based off of a TRL9 system originally used by GA-EMS for airborne applications, redesigned for space applications. The system architecture can support multiple modulation schemes These will be described.

The LCT uses a novel acquisition scheme which is introduced here that enables rapid acquisition for systems even when the bus level pointing accuracy is in excess of 350urad. This LCT architecture can be used on multiple missions without necessitating extensive redesign and qualification.  GA-EMS is launching two of these terminals in cubesats in December 2020 to host an on-orbit demonstration of crosslinks between the two terminals and downlinks to a ground station.

Wednesday
Dec 9, 2020 6:30 PM

JOINT OSSC AND VOSA ONLINE MEETING

December 9, 2020 6:00 pm P.T.

“Anywhere Light Goes^®
A Way of Thinking About Optical Product Development”

By Dr. Stephen Fantone, Ph.D.,

President of OSA and President of Optikos Corporation

Established in 1982, Optikos is an engineering and instrumentation firm that uses optics as an enabling technology for clients with applications that include medical devices and diagnostics, virtual reality and consumer products, aerospace and defense systems, and automotive sensing and imaging applications.

In its earliest days, the field of optical engineering was focused on lens design and straightforward imaging systems. With each decade came hot new technologies and the sometimes-rapid rise and fall of companies looking to profit quickly from them. From the early commercial copiers and instant cameras to large scale reconnaissance systems to fiber optics, digital cameras and now lidar—Optikos has managed to stay the course. How have we done it? This talk is about taking a broad view, being open to any challenge, and staying nimble as technologies emerge, rise, and sometimes die while other technologies leap from a seemingly brash idea to widespread adoption

Table Top X-ray Laser

Robert L Byer, PhD
Stanford University

Bright, coherent X-ray sources from free electron lasers (FEL) are large systems. For example, the LCLS source at Stanford requires part of the SLAC linear accelerator and a large building with magnetic undulator magnets to produce coherent x ray pulses.

Dr. Byer is principal investigator for the ACHIP program at Stanford and co-leader of the ACHIP international collaboration.  This technology uses laser light to accelerate electrons to high energies using a small photonic chip structure.  These high energy electrons are proposed for generating coherent X-rays.
See flyer for more details.

Astrophotonics & Detecting Extraterrestrial Life

Dr. Nemanja Jovanovic
Senior Instrument Scientist,
California Institute of Technology