Electronically Switchable Bragg Gratings (ESBGs) Foster-Miller, Inc. Waltham, MA

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Electronically Switchable Bragg Gratings (ESBGs)
Foster-Miller, Inc.Waltham, MA
Innovation Electrically controlled diffractive
optical elements based on a novel polymer/liquid
crystal microdroplet composite were developed for
programmable optical interconnects and switchable
focus lenses.

• Accomplishments
• Developed techniques for switchable diffractive
  lenses.
• Demonstrated applications to reading multi-layer
  optical disks.
• Showed reconfigurable interconnect optical
  architectures for high-speed parallel
  computation.
• Developed holographic lithography and fabrication
  methods for ESBG lenses, electrodes and packages.
• Due to nanoencapsulation, ESBG lenses switch in
  50 µs, much faster than bulk liquid crystals.
• Enables spectral imagers and other applications
  of diffractive optics to eliminate moving parts.
• ESBG arrays are a new type of spatial light
  modulator for transforming laser beams into large
  numbers of reconfigurable states.
• Commercialization
• Promising applications in optical communication
  networks for cntrol of wavelength division
  multiplexed (WDM) systems.
• Foster-Miller has invested 1M internally in
  patent costs, market research and IRD to further
  develop ESBG telecomm products.
• ESBG technology is targeted for Foster-Miller
  spin-off commercialization.

Switchable drop filter concept for WDM networks
using ESBGs

• Government/Science Applications
• U.S. Navy contracted for demonstration of
  spectral imager with no moving parts.
• ESBG fiber optic switch components for WDM under
  consideration for Next Generation Internet
  (DARPA).

Points of Contact - NASA (Denise Swain
256/544-8112) - Foster-Miller, Inc. (Dr. L.
Domash 781/684-4164) 1993 SBIR Phase 2
NAS8-40562
Marshall Space Flight Center Date of
Update 12/15/98 Success Story 8-025