Sep 30 2010
The US Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) will provide over $2 million annual funding to the Photonic Integration for Coherent Optics (PICO) consortium. The PICO consortium is one among the four consortia to receive the funding from DARPA. The consortium focuses on the research of developing photonic technology for sensing and communications applications.
The University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) leads the PICO consortium. The consortium comprises researchers from Lehigh University, the University of Virginia, the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, the consortium includes 17 industry partners such as JDSU, Infinera, Rockwell-Collins, Teledyne, Corning, Intel, and HP. The industry and university partners will also provide over $2 million in funding to the PICO.
UCSB is developing photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which will be the source of powerful computing systems and optical communications. These chips can pack numerous components into a single chip. PICO will design and fabricate advanced PICs that can work on lightwaves’ phase and amplitude. The photonics devices will allow transmission of large volumes of data over long-distance networks, and enhance the density and efficiency of short links within computers or in data centers. These chips will use silicon CMOS and monolithic indium phosphide technology.