FAQs

Are your materials available for purchase today?
Isn’t the usage of Silicon “good enough” in computing, networking, and data devices?
Are there other electro-optic materials?
Why is the University of Washington (UW) lab unique, and is there no other competition for these kinds of materials?
What is the temperature stability of NLM’s OEO materials?
I heard about OEO and optical computing 20 years ago. Why has it not taken off yet?
What is an organic material? How is it different from other materials used in semiconductors?
What is optical computing? How is it different from what we know today?
Why are you called “Nonlinear Materials”?
Where are your materials being used today ?
Have NLM’s materials undergone testing according to Telcordia Generic Requirements?
What is the processing protocol for the materials?
Are the materials compatible with semiconductor foundry processes?
Where and how will OEO materials be incorporated into chips?

Are your materials available for purchase today?

NLM has materials available today under academic or commercial R&D licenses or production licenses. While we maintain an inventory of some materials — such as HLD, our flagship material — other materials are produced on demand, which may take 30-90 days depending on the quantity and complexity.

Isn’t the usage of Silicon “good enough” in computing, networking, and data devices?

Silicon electro-optic devices have been built and are in production, but at a high cost of silicon real estate, power, and limited speed compared to hybrid devices using NLM materials. As data centers move to 400G hardware and to 800G or 1.2T future capabilities, larger arrays of power-hungry silicon modulators and more complex digital signal processing circuitry are required. Integrating NLM materials with silicon photonics or other platforms enables faster channels, much smaller devices, and tighter integration with electronics, allowing for transformative growth that could skip generations in a network hardware roadmap.

Are there other electro-optic materials?

Other electro-optic materials exist and are in commercial use, but they have drawbacks. These are typically crystalline compounds such as lithium niobate that are presently used for making fiber optic components; devices using these materials are power-hungry and physically large.

Lithium niobate and similar materials are challenging to integrate directly on chips — a key driver needed for the development of the electro-optics market — and have fixed properties, limiting room for performance improvement.

Silicon photonics (using silicon chips for data processing using light) has enabled tighter integration of electronics and photonics but still has performance constraints.

NLM’s materials are engineered to integrate with silicon photonics and other platforms and deliver performance far beyond what the underlying platform is capable of alone.

Why is the University of Washington (UW) lab unique, and is there no other competition for these kinds of materials?

The Dalton and Robinson Labs in the UW Department of Chemistry have been continually refining OEO materials for the last 20 years, with over $20 million in government-sponsored R&D funding. At this time, they have developed detailed computational chemistry methods to facilitate theory-aided design, paired with extensive empirical knowledge. As a result, the OEO materials and expertise coming out of UW represent the pinnacle of our field.

What is the temperature stability of NLM’s OEO materials?

Commercial OEO materials can operate at data center “extended temperature” specifications of -40 °C to 85 °C. They have also demonstrated long-term stability at these temperatures. With appropriate encapsulation technologies, they can withstand aggressive conditions such as damp heat (85 °C and 85% relative humidity). Device operation up to 140 °C has been demonstrated using our current materials. NLM materials are available that are capable of withstanding short exposures to temperatures over 200 °C during processing, packaging, and bonding processes compatible with other organics like OLEDs.

I heard about OEO and optical computing 20 years ago. Why has it not taken off yet?

OEO materials have been steadily improving over the past 20 years, from a fraction of bandwidth performance of standard electro-optic materials, such as lithium niobate, to over 10x the performance of lithium niobate. But recent development of nanophotonic device architectures has unlocked the potential of OEO materials and will enable a revolution in photonics.

What is an organic material? How is it different from other materials used in semiconductors?

Organic materials are molecules composed largely of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur atoms, which can be arranged in endless combinations using standard chemical synthesis techniques. Some types of organic molecules can be used in electronic and photonic applications: common consumer applications include organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

NLM designs and produces OEO materials that enable incredible optical switching/modulation performance. Such materials use different fabrication techniques than common inorganic semiconductor materials used in electronics and photonics, such as silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, or indium phosphide. OEO materials can be used in high temperature solution-phase processes. Such techniques have been demonstrated for mass production for OLEDs and related products. Furthermore, OEO materials can be continuously improved to meet customer requirements through theory-aided molecular design, compared to the properties of inorganic semiconductors that are defined by their crystal lattice and have minimal opportunity for modification.

What is optical computing? How is it different from what we know today?

Currently, computers rely on electrical signals flowing through transistors to perform logical computing processes and move data between components that are performing logical operations or storing data. In optical computing, the electrical signals are replaced by photons (light), which can travel through many materials with little loss or interference, enabling much faster (100s of GHz to THz) operations and a substantial reduction in power use. Optical interconnects can move data from one part of a system to another with little loss or need for amplification. Optical transistors can be used to create the logic elements used for computing components. Electro-optic devices bridge the electronic and optical domains, allowing both types of components to be used on a single chip and leveraging the most significant advantages of both optical computing and conventional CMOS electronics.

Why are you called “Nonlinear Materials”?

When light encounters most materials, it can interact with the material and be reflected, refracted (bent), or absorbed (e.g., causing the material to appear a particular color). While photons of light do not substantially interact with each other, some materials have properties that allow light to interact within them. These materials are called nonlinear materials because this interaction makes absorbance, refraction, etc. no longer a linear property of light intensity. There are many kinds of nonlinear optical effects. NLM presently focuses on the Pockels effect in which a change in the voltage (e.g., radio waves or digital data) changes the speed of light traveling through a material. There are other effects, such as Optical Rectification (light inducing a voltage without being absorbed) or the Optical Kerr Effect (photons of light changing the speed of light in a material), which are of interest to NLM as well.

Where are your materials being used today ?

Our OEO materials are being used for R&D by universities, research institutions, and companies all around the world. Our materials have been incorporated into record-setting devices based on size, bandwidth, and power consumption. We anticipate commercial devices containing our materials to reach the market in the near term.

Have NLM’s materials undergone testing according to Telcordia Generic Requirements?

HLD, NLM’s flagship material, has demonstrated no loss in performance after 500 hours at 85 ˚ C. It is currently undergoing a full range of accelerated lifetime testing in accordance with Telcordia guidelines. These tests include exposure to damp heat (85 ˚ C and 85% relative humidity), dry heat, freeze-thaw cycles, and more. While full Telcordia certification must ultimately be demonstrated in our customers’ devices, these tests, once complete, will confirm our materials are capable of surviving the conditions required to achieve such certification.

What is the processing protocol for the materials?

The full details for successful materials processing are provided to customers, but the basic process can be broken down into four major steps:

1) Fabricate a device for the integration of the OEO material; the silicon and metal layers of such a device are produced in a standard semiconductor foundry.

2) Deposit the OEO material using one of several low-cost, high-throughput solution processing methods, such as spin coating, blade coating, or inkjet printing.

3) Properly anneal the OEO thin film to remove the solvent and prepare the material for poling.

4) Pole the material to achieve the acentric order of the constituent OEO chromophores by applying a large electric field (~1 MV/cm) and heating the material above its glass transition temperature, and then cooling to room temperature and removing the poling field.

At this point, the device is active and can be tested or further packaged.

Are the materials compatible with semiconductor foundry processes?

We expect OEO materials to be integrated into the TAP (Test, Assembly, and Packaging) processes and not in a foundry. While OEO materials cannot withstand the extremely high temperatures (>300 ˚C) involved in some semiconductor foundry processes, the materials are not integrated into devices until after the foundry; this also avoids contamination of the highly controlled foundry processes. Our materials can survive brief exposure to high temperatures (~200 ˚C) and extended exposure at lower temperatures (~140 ˚C), ensuring compatibility with the TAP processes.

Where and how will OEO materials be incorporated into chips?

The integration of OEO materials is facile and readily accomplished at the wafer level at the TAP facility, post-foundry (CMOS and/or Si photonics), but before device singulation and packaging. The underlying structures for hybrid devices will be fabricated in the Si photonics foundry — alongside such features as couplers, waveguides, and splitters, and interconnected with CMOS electronics elements fabricated in the first step. The integration of OEO materials at the TAP facility after the foundry processes avoids contamination of sensitive foundry processes and minimizes the exposure of OEO materials to extreme thermal conditions.