2025 DEVCOM ARL Summer Student Experience: Technologies for Integrated Photonic Oscillators

This project will support our ongoing efforts to bring the exciting field of optical frequency division to the form factor of an integrated chip. Optical frequency division uses optical frequency combs (OFCs) to divide the frequency of an optical frequency reference (such as an optical resonator or optical atomic transition) to a microwave output signal, whose frequency is usable in conventional circuits. One of the enduring challenges in bringing this technology to the chip scale is generating on-chip OFCs with repetition rates that are sufficiently small (e.g., <40 GHz) to work with conventional electronics while simultaneously minimizing the required power (i.e., optical power in the case of microresonator OFCs and RF power in the case of electro-optic modulator OFCs). In this project, the student will work towards generating microwaves with frequencies <40 GHz using on-chip OFCs that require practical amounts of power. This project may involve characterizing OFC devices, building fiber-optic characterization circuits, making precision frequency noise measurements, and other related tasks.

Advisor Email: james.p.cahill15.civ@army.mil

Materials (and related manufacturing methods) and devices intended for achieving photonic, electronic, and quantum-based effects. 

The DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Research Associateship Program (RAP) Summer Student Experience (SSE) is an educational program that allows undergraduate through PhD students and recent bachelor’s and master’s degree graduates to participate in a paid research experience at a Department of Defense laboratory over the summer break.  Participants are paired with scientists and engineers at ARL who are helping to shape and execute the Army’s program for meeting the challenge of developing technologies that will support Army forces future operational needs.  As a participant in the ARL-RAP SSE, you will be part of high priority research efforts that are broadly supported by 11 research competencies.  While ARL has identified several specific research topics, the opportunity for general research may also exist under each competency. 

The Army Research Laboratory Research Associateship Program (ARL-RAP) is designed to significantly increase the involvement of creative and highly trained scientists and engineers from academia and industry in scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Army. Scientists and Engineers at the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) help shape and execute the Army’s program for meeting the challenge of developing technologies that will support Army forces in meeting future operational needs by pursuing scientific research and technological developments in diverse fields such as: applied mathematics, atmospheric characterization, simulation and human modeling, digital/optical signal processing, nanotechnology, material science and technology, multifunctional technology, combustion processes, propulsion and flight physics, communication and networking, and computational and information sciences. 

ARL’s Army Research Directorate (ARD) focuses on exploiting concept development, discovery, technology development, and transition of the most promising disruptive science and technology to deliver to the Army fundamentally advantageous science-based capabilities through ARL’s 11 research competencies. This intramural research directorate also manages the laboratory’s essential research programs, which are flagship research efforts focused on delivering defined outcomes.

• Adelphi Laboratory Center, Maryland (ALC)

For questions about the Summer Student Experience Program, please email ARLFellowship@orau.org.