PTB Industry News

NP Photonic Technologies Awarded
Phase II SBIR Grant

NP Photonic Technologies (NP), Tucson, AZ, has received $750,000 from the U.S. Department of Defense Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) fund to continue development of novel fiber-optic components designed for faster data transmission in both commercial and military communications systems. Research Corporation Technologies (RTC) has provided additional funding and is a partner in the project.

According to NP, the company's Er3+-doped glass fiber for fiber amplifiers and lossless beamsplitters for optical communications networks are being developed as a cheaper, more efficient alternative to devices currently in use.

NP's Er3+-doped glass fiber for fiber amplifiers is designed for extremely high gain per unit length at 1.54mm. According to NP, the new fiber is a high-concentration Er3+-doped phosphate glass fiber that is shorter than 5 cm to compensate for the 12dB inherent signal loss and the additional insertion loss of a 1 x 16 power splitter. The company says that its cost is less than 1 percent of current market price.

The fiber can be attached to and aligned to other parts on the Silicon Optical Bench (SiOB) or other substrates using the V-groove technology. The SiOB is reportedly the platform of choice for the large-scale, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) mass market.

NP's Er3+-doped fiber is designed to enable construction of low-cost, rugged, compact, and highly integrated lossless beamsplitters that are needed to realize FTTH. It is estimated that more than 50 million lossless splitters are needed in the U.S. to connect every American street and home to the optical telecommunications network.