The development of the first fully integrated 4-channel fiber optic gyroscope "optical engine" is presented. The optical
engine integrates the equivalent of more than 24 discrete optical components into a hybrid chip with a size of 67x11x3
mm. After the optical engine is spliced to fiber sensor coils, the performance of the gyroscope has been benchmarked to
be equivalent to the performance of a navigation grade gyroscope fabricated with discrete components.
Programs in both the U.S. and Britain are attempting to apply staring array technology to the ship-board infrared search and track (SBIRST) problem. A prime objective is to speed processing time, the previous generation of 360 deg scanners having a refresh rate of only 0.5-1.0 Hz. Another objective is to enhance sensitivity using much longer integration times. An impediment, though, is that if all pixels of resolution angle ∅ were to be viewed simultaneously with dedicated detectors each of width w, the total net length of detector material would then have to be very large: 2πw/∅ = 1.57 m = 60" for 100 μRad resolution and 25 μm detectors. So the application of staring array technology to horizon surveillance needs some form of wide viewing technique involving a combination of asymmetric resolution, reduced resolution, split optics or LOS stepping. The present paper suggests that conventional NEI is not the preferred unit of measure for guiding design choices but that instead a form of BLIP S/N can be both simple and intuitive. This S/N unit of measure is used to compare the two main choices for how to adapt staring technology to the horizon surveillance problem.
We report here on wafer-bonded InGaAs/Si avalanche photodiodes (APDs) demonstrating very low excess noise factors that were fabricated using a high-yield, wafer-scale bonding process. The bonding interface quality was evaluated using high-resolution x-ray diffraction and dark current measurements. Measured dark currents on 20 μm diameter mesas are 25 nA and 170 nA at gains of 10 and 50, respectively. Low excess noise factors, which are predicted due to the superior noise properties of Si as a multiplication layer, were measured to be more than 3 times lower than commercial InGaAs/InP APDs at a gain of 10, and more than 9 times lower at a gain of 50. The corresponding electron/hole ionization coefficient ratio k in these devices is as low as 0.02.
Wafer-bonded avalanche photodiodes (APDs) combining InGaAs for the absorption layer and silicon for the multiplication layer have been fabricated. The reported APDs have a very low room-temperature dark current density of only 0.7 mA/cm2 at a gain of 10. The dark current level is as low as that of conventional InGaAs/InP APDs. High avalanche gains in excess of 100 are presented. The photodiode responsivity at a wavelength of 1.31 micrometers is 0.64 A/W, achieved without the use of an anti-reflection coating. The RC-limited bandwidth is 1.45 GHz and the gain-bandwidth product is 290 GHz. The excess noise factor F is much lower than that of conventional InP-based APDs, with values of 2.2 at a gain of 10 and 2.3 at a gain of 20. This corresponds to an effective ionization rate ratio keff as low as 0.02. The expected receiver sensitivity for 2.5 Gb/s operation at (lambda) = 1.31 um using our InGaAs/silicon APD is -41 dBm at an optimal gain of M = 80.
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