This technology introduces a revolutionary receiver architecture capable of demodulating high-order QAM signals without the need for high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), significantly enhancing communication speed and efficiency.

Researchers from UC San Diego have developed RadSenNet, a new approach of sequential fusing of information from radars and cameras. The key idea of sequential fusion is to fundamentally shift the center of focus in radar-camera fusion systems from cameras to radars. This shift enables their invention (RadSegNet) to achieve all-weather perception benefits of radar sensing. Keeping radars as the primary modality ensures reliability in all situations including occlusions, longrange and bad weather.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a large-scale, energy-efficient, high-throughput, and compact tensorized optical neural network (TONN) exploiting the tensor-train decomposition architecture on an integrated III–V-on-silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor capacitor (MOSCAP) platform.

Optical atomic clocks have taken a giant leap in recent years, with several experiments reaching uncertainties at the 10−18 level. The development of synchronized clock networks and transportable clocks that operate in extreme and distant environments would allow clocks based on different atomic standards or placed in separate locations to be compared. Such networks would enable relativistic geodesy, tests of fundamental physics, dark matter searches, and more. However, the leading neutral-atom optical clocks operate on wavelengths of 698 nm (Sr) and 578 nm (Yb). Light at these wavelengths is strongly attenuated in optical fibers, posing a challenge to long-distance time transfer. Those wavelengths are also inconvenient for constructing the ultrastable lasers that are an essential component of optical clocks. To address this problem, UC Berkeley researchers have developed a new, laser-cooled neutral atom optical atomic clock that operates in the telecommunication wavelength band. The leveraged atomic transitions are narrow and exhibit much smaller black body radiation shifts than those in alkaline earth atoms, as well as small quadratic Zeeman shifts. Furthermore, the transition wavelengths are in the low-loss S, C, and L-bands of fiber-optic telecommunication standards, allowing the clocks to be integrated with robust laser technology and optical amplifiers. Additionally, the researchers have identified magic trapping wavelengths via extensive studies and have proposed approaches to overcome magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. Together, these features support the development of fiber-linked terrestrial clock networks over continental distances.

Silicon photonics is increasingly used in an array of communications and computing applications. In many applications, photonic chips must be coupled to optical fibers, which remains challenging due to the size mismatch between the on-chip photonics and the fiber itself. Existing approaches suffer from low alignment tolerance, sensitivity to fabrication variations, and complex processing, all of which hinder mass manufacture.To address these problems, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a coupling mechanism between a silicon integrated photonic circuit and an optical fiber which uses a microlens to direct and collimate light into the fiber. Researchers have demonstrated that this device can achieve low coupling loss at large alignment tolerances, with an efficient and scalable manufacturing process analogous to existing manufacture of electronic integrated circuits. In particular, because the beam is directed above the silicon chip, this method obviates dry etching or polishing of the edge of the IC and allows the silicon photonics to be produced by dicing in much the same way as present electronic integrated circuits.

Researchers at UC Irvine have developed a novel optical fiber technology that uses newly developed “zero-refractive index” material as a guiding medium, overcoming the significant limitations of conventional optical fiber where light properties are limited by glass core material. This novel technology will dramatically improve optical communication transmission speed and power by orders of magnitude.

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Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed an optical transceiver that uses compressive sensing to reduce bandwidth requirements and improve signal resolution.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a reconfigurable radiator array that produces a high frequency directed beam via uninterrupted, scalable, electronic beam steering.

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Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a new class of lasers and amplifiers that uses a CMOS-compatible electronics platform - and can also be applied to nano-amplifiers and nano-lasers applications.

Electromagnetic noise from surfaces is one of the limiting factors for the performance of solid state and trapped ion quantum information processing architectures. This noise introduces gate errors and reduces the coherence time of the systems. Accordingly, there is great commercial interest in reducing the electromagnetic noise generated at the surface of these systems.Surface treatment using ion bombardment has shown to reduce electromagnetic surface noise by two orders of magnitude. In this procedure ions usually from noble gasses are accelerated towards the surface with energies of 300eV to 2keV. Until recently, commercial ion guns have been repurposed for surface cleaning. While these guns can supply the ion flux and energy required to prepare the surface with the desired quality, they are bulky and limit the laser access, making them incompatible with the requirements for ion trap quantum computing.To address this limitation, UC Berkeley researchers have developed an ion gun that enables in-situ surface treatment without sacrificing high optical access, enabling in situ use with a quantum information processor.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a nanolaser platform built from materials that do not exhibit optical gain.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a hierarchical optical switch architecture that is low latency and energy efficient.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a multi-wavelength, laser array that generates more precise wavelengths than current technologies. The array also delivers narrow linewidths and can operate athermally.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a nanophotonic-based platform for signal processing and optical computing in algorithm-based neural networks that is faster and more energy-efficient than current technologies.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed nonreciprocal and reconfigurable phased-array antennas with demonstrated advantages over competing, current technologies.

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The widespread adoption of visible light communication (VLC) systems based on light emitting diode (LED) transmitters requires the simultaneous increase in efficiency and speed of the optical source. Efficiency is measured by the external quantum efficiency while speed is quantified by the 3dB modulation bandwidth. Most research on the indium gallium nitride (InGaN) system has focused on improving the EQE because this metric, and its dependence on injection current density is an important factor for the growth of LEDs as illumination source for general lighting purposes. The modulation rate of LEDs is however poised to grow in importance due to the need to couple information processing with illumination. An LED with GHz modulation bandwidth, incorporated as light source in an optical transceiver, can enable a plethora of VLC applications: from chip-to-chip wireless communications in data centers to smart automotive lighting, from safe and RF interference-free wireless local area networks in hospitals and offices to underwater optical communications for the exploration, inspection and maintenance of offshore oil

Hyperbolic metasurfaces (HMS) merge the exotic properties of hyperbolic metamaterials with the potential for lower losses and better device coupling offered by planar metasurfaces. Despite use of single-crystalline silver (Ag), HMS remain inherently lossy, limiting potential applications. Recent work has suggested that Ag could be combined with indium gallium arsenide phosphide (InGaAsP) multiple quantum wells (MQW) to enable transparent propagation of signals through waveguides and multilayers. Described here is the first experimental demonstration of a luminescent HMS (LuHMS) based on nanostructured (NS) Ag/InGaAsP MQW.  

Object detection and ranging is a fundamental task for several applications such as autonomous vehicles, atmospheric observations, 3D imaging, topography and mapping. UCI researchers have developed a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system which makes use of frequency modulated continuous waves (FMCW) with several simultaneous radiofrequency tones for improved speed of measurement while maintaining robust spatial information. 

UCLA researchers in the Department of Physics have developed a plasma opening switch that enables quick diversion of multi-gigawatt pulses to a protective shunt circuit.