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Ewing, NJ - The US Air Force Rome Laboratory (Hanscom AFB, Bedford, MA) has awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to Discovery Semiconductors. The two-year, $750,000 contract involves development of fabrication methods for high-speed integrated photoreceiver monolithic microwave integrated-circuit chips on an indium phosphide (InP) substrate. The first phase of development saw Discovery make high-speed optically resonant indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) single-element photodetectors 50 µm in diameter with a cutoff frequency of 5.3 GHz at a reverse bias of 3V.
In the second phase, the company will optimize the photodetector technology and design an InP transimpedance amplifier. The goal is to develop technology for manufacturing low-cost integrated photoreceivers made up of an InGaAs photodetector and InP transimpedance amplifier with a frequency response up to 44 GHz and a sensitivity of -30 dBm. Discovery will use a vertical configuration for the detector and amplifier on a single substrate, simplifying integration. Applications for the integrated high-speed devices include fiberoptic telecommunications, ultrafast-laser monitoring, and characterization of high-speed optical components such as modulators and multiplexers.
