TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Systems and Methods for Synthesizing and Processing RF/Microwave Signals with High Fidelity Using Photonics

Opportunity: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344 (Contract 44) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity to enter into a collaboration to further develop and commercialize its novel systems and methods for synthesizing and processing RF/Microwave signals with high fidelity using photonics. Background: Generating microwave signals with high spectral purity and stability is crucial in communication systems, radars, signal processing, radio astronomy, satellites, GPS navigation, spectroscopy, and in time and frequency metrology. Noise and interference are the single most important factors limiting the performance of existing signal processing systems. Systems that implement electronics-based Analogue-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) suffer from multiple noise sources, such as thermal noise and sampling jitter, the latter being particularly important for applications with high signal bandwidth since its effective noise scales linearly with signal. For this reason, ADC performance typically drops with high bandwidth driving up cost dramatically. To mitigate these issues, analog optical links offer a promising technology for applications such as radiofrequency (RF)-over-fiber, antenna remoting, and photonic assisted ADCs featuring reduced noise characteristics and resilience to electromagnetic interference. However, one of the primary limitations of intensity-modulated analog optical link technology is high noise figure stemming from successive electronic-to-optical and optical-to-electronic conversions. Many electro-optic modulation techniques exist that strive for high modulation efficiency by increasing modulation depth of the modulated RF signal resulting higher signal-to-noise ratio. However, fundamental limitations exist for all such technologies, resulting in tradeoffs in RF bandwidth, optical power handling, and/or insertion loss. Description: LLNL researchers in the NIF Directorate DoD Technologies RF Photonics Group explored phase modulation solutions to this signal processing challenge. Optical frequency combs offer phase noise characteristics that are orders of magnitude lower than available from commercial microwave references. The Photonics Group researchers recognized that by converting the intensity information into phase, the magnitude of the converted information is no longer limited to 100% modulation depth, but instead can span multiple 2? radians without clipping. In a suite of five new patent applications, these researchers proposed several novel innovations including an optical encoder device they refer to as a helix encoder because the mapping of intensity to phase can be viewed as encoding the pump intensity information into a helix, with the third dimension represented by the total number of 2? radian windings. This technology innovation enables digitization of high-power electronic signals via unlimited optical phase wrapping that uses noise cancellation and calibration algorithms to achieve an extremely large dynamic range. Advantages/Benefits: LLNL's novel systems and methods for synthesizing and processing RF/Microwave signals with high fidelity using photonics has several advantages over all-electronic solutions: Wide bandwidth and large dynamic range, Ultralow phase noise and jitter, Resilience to electromagnetic interference, Low jitter. Potential Applications: LLNL's low noise, wideband, high-fidelity measurement technologies have a wide array of applications in the field of Radio Frequency (RF) / Microwave signal processing: Communications RF-over-Fiber Antenna Remoting RADAR applications Satellites GPS Navigation Quantum Computing Radio Astronomy Development Status: Current stage of technology development: TRL 5-6 (March 2023) LLNL has filed for patent protection on this invention. LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. Please visit the IPO website at https://ipo.llnl.gov/resources for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process. Note: THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT. Companies interested in commercializing LLNL's novel systems and methods for synthesizing and processing RF/Microwave signals with high fidelity using photonics should provide a written statement of interest, which includes the following: 1. Company Name and address. 2. The name, address, and telephone number of a point of contact. 3. A description of corporate expertise and/or facilities relevant to commercializing this technology. Written responses should be directed to: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Innovation and Partnerships Office P.O. Box 808, L-779 Livermore, CA 94551-0808 Attention: IL-13438 - IL-13442 Please provide your written statement within thirty (30) days from the date this announcement is published to ensure consideration of your interest in LLNL's novel systems and methods for synthesizing and processing RF/Microwave signals with high fidelity using photonics.