Lightwave Logic and Polariton Expand Partnership

Lightwave Logic, a developer of electro-optic (EO) polymer technology, has advanced its technical collaboration with Polariton Technologies, a manufacturer of high-speed EO components for the communication market. The companies will jointly develop solutions to hasten the adoption and integration of combined plasmonics and polymer-based products, with semiconductor fabrication plants, outsourced assembly, and test operations.

In addition to manufacturing transmitter photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with increased EO performance, the teams will collaborate on an extensive qualification and reliability program, high-speed radio frequency and optical testing, and back-end manufacturing process integration.

“We are transitioning from being a material supplier to collaborating on market development through end-user engagement and technical cooperation,” said Yves LeMaitre, CEO of Lightwave Logic. Supplying Lightwave's EO polymer materials and integration expertise via the collaboration, LeMaitre said, will enable Polariton to develop an approach to address opportunities presented by the AI market. The collaboration allows for the device integration of Lightwave Logic's high-performance electro-optic polymer materials with Polariton's plasmonic circuits to address the inherent bandwidth and form factor bottlenecks of traditional materials such as indium phosphide, silicon photonics, and thin-film lithium niobate to accommodate ultra-high bandwidths.

Beyond citing applications for next-generation AI clusters, the companies have also identified intra- and inter-datacenter and optical networking links to deliver 400 Gb/s per lane and scale to 800 Gb/s per lane as target outcomes for the collaboration.

Lightwave and Polariton previously partnered last fall to demonstrate a packaged device with >110 GHz super-high bandwidth packaged EO polymer modulators. The demonstration, the companies said at the time, uses Polariton's plasmonic modulator device design, and the packaged device contains a plasmonic modulator and platform chips that have demonstrated 400 Gbps.