In the civil sector, including NASA, photonic device applications include laser range finding, photonic gyroscopes, spectroscopy, and optical communications. For example, the upcoming Laser Communications Relay Demonstration on the ISS, called ILLUMA, relies on a first-of-its-kind integrated photonics circuit to transmit and encode data at orders of magnitude higher rates than traditional digital systems. Future integrated photonics circuits can be lithographically printed on large single optical crystals, much as integrated microelectronic circuits are lithographically printed on semiconductor crystals today.
CMOS image sensors go into new automotive-safety systems, medical equipment, video security and surveillance networks, human-recognition user interfaces, and other embedded image collection devices. The growth in laser transmitter demand is driven by ever-increasing Internet traffic, cloud services, and the expected dramatic leap in network load from billions of Internet of Things connections. This sub-market is particularly complimentary to the Made In Space program for ZBLAN optical fiber production. ZBLAN optical fiber manufactured in microgravity has both a lower attenuation rate and a wider transmission window than traditional silica fiber. While fiber produced on-orbit can be used to increase the efficiency of existing fiber networks, it can also support higher-output transmitters that utilize microgravity-grown nonlinear optical crystals to exceed the material limits of silica fiber.One high impact application that NLO crystals are ideally suited to is the efficient production of UV light by second harmonic generation (SHG). A high efficiency conversion could potentially take incoherent light and produce UV from a low energy source such as an LED. Several inorganic NLO materials have transparency in the UV range including BPO4, which has a lower range of 130 nm. This would be a game changing system for medical and industrial UV applications such as lithography and machining.Another important application is efficient measurement of terahertz wave sensors.
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