Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has been awarded a research program from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to develop a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) spectrometer that can simultaneously achieve high-resolution over wide-bandwidths using a scalable and foundry-ready approach.

While a PIC-based spectrometer is a key component for on-chip Raman, fluorescence, and absorption spectroscopy, it is also a general purpose tool for PIC designers when available within a foundry’s process-design kit (PDK). Teaming with the Georgia Institute of Technology, PSI’s approach uses a passive photonics platform with low-loss SiN waveguides and high-performance off-chip detectors to enable high quantum efficiencies. Our approach is also highly adaptable and scalable in terms of center wavelength and it can be designed to operate over >200-nm bands throughout the visible and near-infrared wavelength regimes.

An on-chip spectrometer is a key component for low size, weight, and power spectroscopy applications including fluorescence, absorption, and Raman spectroscopy. The devices will demonstrate the performance needed for some of the most demanding spectroscopic applications such as Raman spectroscopy for chemical identification and threat detection. At the same time, these devices will be readily adaptable to other on-chip spectroscopy applications and will become readily available to photonic circuit designs by their incorporation into a commercial foundry’s PDK. In addition to advancing Department of Defense sensing applications, these devices would benefit the healthcare sector through medical diagnostic devices as well as industrial applications such as processing monitoring.