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Marshall
Space Flight Center
1993 Phase II
Electronically
Switchable Bragg Gratings (ESBGs)
Foster-Miller,
Inc.
Waltham, MA
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INNOVATION
Electrically controlled diffractive
optical elements based on a novel polymer/liquid crystal microdroplet
composite were developed for programmable optical interconnects and
switchable focus lenses
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Switchable drop filter concept for
WDM networks using ESBGs
Optional Powerpoint
file
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Developed techniques for switchable
diffractive lenses
- Demonstrated applications to
reading multi-layer optical disks
- Showed reconfigurable interconnect
optical architectures for high-speed parallel computation
- Developed holographic lithography
and fabrication methods for ESBG lenses, electrodes and packages.
Due to nanoencapsulation, ESBG lenses
switch in 50 µs, much faster than bulk liquid crystals
- Enables spectral imagers and
other applications of diffractive optics to eliminate moving parts
- ESBG arrays are a new type of
spatial light modulator for transforming laser beams into large
numbers of reconfigurable states
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COMMERCIALIZATION
- Promising applications
in optical communication networks for cntrol of wavelength division
multiplexed (WDM) systems
- Foster-Miller has
invested $1M internally in patent costs, market research and IR&D
to further develop ESBG telecomm products
- ESBG technology is
targeted for Foster-Miller spin-off commer- cialization
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GOVERNMENT/SCIENCE
APPLICATIONS
- U.S. Navy contracted
for demonstration of spectral imager with no moving parts
- ESBG fiber optic switch
components for WDM under consideration for Next Generation Internet
(DARPA)
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information about this firm, please send e-mail to company
representative
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