02-211A-Optical Materials: Polymer Photonic Claddings by Electrostatic Self-Assembly

"The proposed BMDO SBIR program would develop polymer-based optical cladding materials and device structures for use in high-speed optical communication systems. NanoSonic Inc. would work with a major research university and a company involved in thedevelopment and evaluation of advanced electro-optic devices. During Phase I, our team would design and synthesize required polymer and other molecules, form these precursors into candidate electro-optic waveguide claddings by electrostatic self-assembly(ESA) processing, and evaluate resulting dielectric and conductive properties, core-cladding waveguide losses, environmental stability and other properties. The ESA process consists of the alternate adsorption of oppositely-charged molecules ontosubstrates to form multilayered coatings. Prior NanoSonic research has demonstrated that ESA processing leads to the formation of noncentrosymmetric materials without the need for electric field poling. The proposed new and separate work would approachESA synthesis using a different strategy, involving a different molecular-level design approach to control cladding conductivity and index while retaining other desired properties. Increased cladding conductivity would result in decreased modulationvoltage losses in the cladding material, and lower half-wave voltage requirements for electro-optic modulators.. Extensive facilities for design, processing and evaluation of molecular precursors, ESA