SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be enabling a disruptive architectural shift for future cloud and high performance computing (HPC) networks. The project will result in a single laser that can generate multiple wavelengths. These multiple wavelengths can each have different data encoded on them and can be sent to different destinations. This allows this single laser to interconnect multiple network nodes simultaneously. The increased connectivity resulting from this technology can unlock significant performance accelerations in HPC and cloud networks. Accelerated HPC performance will increase the rate of fundamental scientific discoveries because HPC is essential for advancing our basic understanding of many complex large-scale scientific phenomena. The envisioned product will be a semiconductor laser that emits multiple wavelengths that can be used to interconnect multiple nodes in a network. The commercial impacts of the proposed activity will be improved performance and cost of HPC and datacenter networks. Potential customers include manufacturers of optical transceivers as well as systems integrators of microelectronic computing. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will enhance understanding of novel semiconductor laser and amplifier component operating principles. This enhanced understanding will be used to inform innovative optical interconnect designs capable of meeting the challenging performance requirements specified by the end applications. The project will enable a systematic design study entailing material science, semiconductor laser physics, as well as device engineering in order to evaluate the feasibility of creating a laser product with sufficient performance. This performance includes low signal-to-noise ratio per wavelength as required for error-free communication. Specifically, the goal is to make a single laser that can emit 32 usable wavelengths, each with at least 1 mW of output power and with competitive relative intensity noise levels. This SBIR Phase I study will be an opportunity to evaluate the design space and assess the plausibility of such a laser for commercial use, while contributing to basic understanding of the relevant technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be in demonstrating a new laser used for the complex computer networks of the high-performance computing (HPC) and data communications industries. HPCs are critical for studying many complex scientific phenomena. Likewise, cloud datacenters represent the backbone of the pervasive connectivity that enables mobile computing, communications, and networking. Both HPCs and datacenters are increasingly reliant on advanced techniques to link hundreds of thousands of computers. The proposed project enables new systems with improved performance, efficiency, reliability, and cost. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will focus on optimizing the performance of novel semiconductor quantum dot based multiwavelength laser sources. Multiwavelength lasers with adequate output power and low noise for commercial applications have long proven challenging due to gain competition between lasing modes and dispersion. The designs and materials platform developed in this project address these challenges directly. The quantum dot gain material provides stability against the traditional barriers to multiwavelength laser performance. By optimizing material properties and device designs, the gain competition between dot sub-populations and the effects of dispersion will be minimized. This can be used for various integrated circuit chips, including ethernet switches, graphics processing units, and field-programmable gate arrays. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.