Photonics at Sandia National Laboratories: From research to applications

Photonics activities at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are founded on a strong materials research program. The advent of the Compound Semiconductor Research Laboratory (CSRL) in 1988, accelerated device and materials research and development. Recently, industrial competitiveness has been added as a major mission of the labs. Photonics projects have expanded towards applications-driven programs requiring device and subsystem prototype deliveries and demonstrations. This evolution has resulted in a full range of photonics programs from materials synthesis and device fabrication to subsystem packaging and test

Thin film processing and device fabrication in the Tl-Ca-Ba-Cu-O system

An obvious group of applications for high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials is microwave and millimeter wave circuitry. Besides low loss, unique features of these materials, such as flux flow, can be exploited. We have been concentrating on the Tl-Ca-Ba-Cu-O family of materials. The film growth techniques, lithographic processing methods and characteristics of several devices we have developed will be presented. These devices include a flux flow-based transistor with demonstrated operation at frequencies above 35 GHz, real gain in a 50 {Omega} system and potentially useful non-linearities and impedance levels. A number of passive microwave components are under investigation to form a more complete HTS microwave technology group. 16 refs., 6 figs