Converting Microwave Signals to Optics-on-a-Chip Makes for Light, Cool Instruments Sometimes innovators adapt proven technologies to enable new capabilities. A new instrument concept combines existing technologies and techniques to improve the way exploration spacecraft receive and convert radio frequency signals to data by converting the radio signal to optical for processing. Goddard Photonics Engineer Eleanya Onuma said electronic signal processing components used in communication and remote sensing applications are efficient but bulky due to their ruggedized packaging for the space environment. They also operate within a narrow bandwidth which limits science investigations. He plans to convert the long-wavelength microwave signals to more compact optical wavelengths using a miniaturized version of an electro-optic modulator. “Electro-optic modulators have cross-cutting applications in Goddard’s instrument designs,” Onuma said. “So why don’t we take a stab at that? How can we improve this essential electrooptic component to enable instrument miniaturization without sacrificing performance?”
Photo Courtesy: Eleanya Onuma
cuttingedge • goddard’s emerging technologies
Volume 18 • Issue 1 • Fall 2021
Eleanya Onuma is building a prototype of his signal processing technology in a Goddard lab.
He plans to use microwave photonics technology to design an ultra-wide band electro-optic modulator for Photonics Integrated Circuits (PICs). By combing the multiple operations of a microwave front end receiver into a single chip, communication and remote sensing instruments can process incoming signals across broader bandwidths while reducing the overall size of the modulator, susceptibility to noise, and transmission losses. A modulator on a circuit board consists of a radio frequency switch, oscillator, mixer, low noise amplifier and frequency filters. Goddard Systems PAGE 14
Engineer Chris Green said these compact PICs will improve essential signal-processing for both communication and remote sensing applications in a single component without compromising performance. Onuma’s project received Center Innovation Funds, or CIF, last year to design and validate the performance of a new, compact electro-optical modulator. This year, the team is working on prototyping their design.
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