TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Materials/Processes, Electronics

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Strike Fighter

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a rugged, durable, low-cost multi-fiber optic array feedthrough subassembly, and optoelectronic package assembly process for connectorized and unconnectorized avionics fiber optic transceivers.

DESCRIPTION: Fiber optic networks in aircraft are becoming a reality. Aviation performance and durability requirements such as shock, vibration, thermodynamic, atmospheric, and fleet maintenance make this technology challenging to produce and deploy. Research is needed to develop innovative multi-fiber optic feedthrough materials and process technology to build hermetically sealed fiber optic transceiver optical subassemblies and other optoelectronic components.

The materials and process technology research should focus on discovering new materials and hermetic sealing techniques to enable high yield, high coupling efficiency assembly of 250 micrometer pitch free-space and fiber optic feedthroughs. The feedthrough should be able to interface with commercial multi-terminus multimode fiber optic ferrules and optoelectronic device arrays, and have a helium leak rate less than 1 E-9 after 1,000 avionics durability, relevant temperature and humidity cycles. The resultant multi-fiber optic package solution(s) should be able to be assembled at temperatures of less than 150 �C and not reflow or fatigue at temperatures up to 225 �C. The new materials and process technology will be applied to packaging and manufacturing both digital (1 to 10 Gb/s) and analog (to 20 GHz) fiber optic systems including both fixed wavelength baseband (i.e. array transceivers) and multi-wavelength division multiplexed (i.e., tunable laser diodes, wavelength converters and bi-directional add/drop multiplexer) systems.

Selection criteria for the new materials and processes must be based on durability, reliability, affordability, producability and drop-in replacement performance. The feedthrough must be capable of packaging single mode and multimode optical fiber.

Avionics-grade fiber optic transmitters, receivers, and transceivers are being supplied to various military aircraft program offices across the DoD, including F/A-18, E-2, F-22 and F-35. Packaging and manufacturing of avionics fiber optic components is technically problematic due to the harsh environmental requirements of avionics line replaceable modules, circuit card assembles and weapons replaceable assemblies. This topic is being submitted to address a cross-platform need to revolutionize and cost reduce avionics optoelectronics module packaging and manufacturing of digital and analog/RF fiber optic modules for both legacy and future avionics networking applications, including mission systems, electronic warfare and flight control.

PHASE I: Determine the feasibility of designing and developing new optical subassembly packaging materials and processes to align and hermetically seal 250 micrometer pitch optoelectronic device and fiber optic arrays, to include manufacturability concerns.

PHASE II: Design, develop and fabricate prototype hermetically sealed array optical subassemblies and perform environmental testing to verify durability and performance. Demonstrate that the proposed combination of materials and processes are low-cost and that the resultant feedthrough design is able to be interfaced with a detachable multi-fiber terminus array connector. Characterize the prototype feedthrough design over the entire military aircraft operational environment.

PHASE III: Demonstrate high yield manufacturability. Demonstrate performance within a specified range of adverse environmental effects. Transition the technology to the fleet.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Private sector applications include computer and telecommunication networks incorporating fiber optic interconnects.

REFERENCES:
1. M.W. Beranek, "Future generation military avionics fiber optics photonics packaging challenges," 26th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference Proceedings, October, 2007.

2. M.W. Beranek, "Fiber optic interconnect and optoelectronic packaging challenges for future generation avionics," Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 6478, January, 2007.

3. E.Y. Chan, et al., "Challenges for developing low-cost avionics/aerospace-grade optoelectronic modules," Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), pp. 1122 � 1129, 1996.

4. M.D. Orr, et al., "Universal detachable optical connector for military and commercial aerospace fiber-optic modules," Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 2691, 1996.

KEYWORDS: fiber optic; hermetic; feedthrough; optical subassembly; optoelectronic; array; assembly

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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