Recent advances in the microelectronics industry facilitate the manufacturing of structures with lateral dimensions on the order of 100 nm with high placement accuracy. Moreover, emerging material systems, such as silicon on insulator (SOI), have been developed for efficient high-speed electronics. These materials are ideally suited for confinement and manipulation of light at telecommunications wavelengths. Luxtera and the Caltech Nanofabrication Group have developed expertise in integrated nanophotonic structures, such as photonic crystals and laser cavities. We believe that recent advances in design and fabrication have created the unprecedented opportunity to develop optical nanostructures which are monolithically integrated with high-speed digital and analog electronics. We will construct multifunctional nanophotonic devices combining switching, modulation, routing, pulse reshaping and regeneration on a single substrate. Compatibility with standard semiconductor processing techniques will allow us to leverage the infrastructure of the semiconductor industry to develop low cost, light weight, and low power consumption nanophotonic systems. Luxtera is bringing "Moore's Law" economics to the dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) components market. The commercialization of nanophotonic integrated circuits will allow us to pioneer the integration of the optical and electronic elements required to build multi-channel DWDM circuits that are fabricated in a standard silicon semiconductor process. This technology brings, for first time, the extraordinary manufacturing economies of microelectronics to the construction of optical telecom systems, providing extraordinary ongoing improvements in size, power, speed and price for virtually all fiber-based applications. Furthermore, because Luxtera's technology is fully compatible with standard semiconductor processing, it will radically reduce the cost of OE and EO transitions, fundamentally changing the cost structure of OEO systems. The extraordinary manufacturing efficiencies of nanophotonics will allow the company to bring cost-effective DWDM solutions to previously unaddressable applications.
Keywords: Nanophotonic Integrated Circuits, Optical Nanostructures, Wdm, Photonic Crystals, Integration, Waveguides, Modulators, Lasers
