RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. SBIR Phase I Award, July 2023

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) is a material platform of choice for the fabrication of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). However, the high refractive index contrast of SOI waveguides also makes silicon photonic circuits very sensitive to fabrication imperfections, as the minutest change in the waveguide dimensions can lead to a noticeable change in the effective index of the waveguide, which causes phase errors in the circuits. RMD Inc. proposes to address the problem of phase errors in PICs by exploring the design, fabrication, and manufacturability of PICs with the chalcogenide PCM-integrated waveguides for phase trimming. The PCM-based phase trimmers will operate in the 700 nm – 900 nm spectral range with low insertion loss of < 0.02 dB (per p phase shift) and will be capable of performing a 2 p optical phase shift.