Lumera Corporation has developed an electro-optic polymer that it claims has five times the efficiency of the inorganic material currently used to fabricate active optical devices.
The electro-optic polymer breakthrough resulted from a partnership between Lumera and the University of Washington. University of Washington professors, Larry Dalton and Alex Jen, have used “nano-tailoring” to increase electro- optic activity that produces substantially more efficiency than that of existing materials. For their part of the partnership, Lumera’s team of scientists adapted internally developed materials to achieve electro-optic coefficients of 160 pm/V at telecom operating wavelengths, a number that is approximately 20% higher than existing materials.
Lumera said it is using the technology and materials to develop a number of new products that will allow the company to expand in, or enter new markets. For example, the company is developing modulators that have highly linear responses for cable TV (CATV) optical links and hybrid wireless/fiber optic networks. Additionally, external modulators that can operate at 10-40 GHz in metro applications, transponders, and long-haul fiber optic network build-outs are being evaluated by potential customers. http://www.lumera.com/
