Chiral Photonics

Chiral Photonics, Inc., founded in 1999, is a photonics company based in Pine Brook, New Jersey, in the US.

CPI designs, develops and manufactures fiber-based optical components and assemblies thereof, for applications ranging from 3D shape sensing, used in minimally invasive surgery, to pump-signal combiners, used in industrial machining, to high bandwidth links, enabling the most advanced submarine communications cables and hyperscale data centers.

CPI's development work often employs optical simulations and modeling, precision microforming of glass, polarization control and advanced optical characterization, packaging and testing to meet exacting performance requirements for deployments ranging from outer space to subsea. CPI is a primary supplier of multicore fiber fanouts and related components worldwide.

Funding
Chiral Photonics had received funding from venture capital, angel, and government sources including a US$2 million National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Technology Program award in 2004., and a number of SBIR and STTR awards.

Technology & Expertise
Utilizing proprietary microforming techniques as well as custom fiber designs, as needed, CPI has pioneered several innovative optical components and products and published extensively on its technology. Products include in-fiber linear and circular polarizers, high temperature optical sensors, high density optical arrays, pump signal combiners, low-loss multicore fiber (MCF) fanouts, and wavelength division multiplexers, WDMs, for MCFs.

Most recently, with the rapid maturation of the MCF market, CPI's low-loss fanouts have become the industry standard for seamlessly connecting multicore fiber to the ubiquitous optical fiber internet network, which primarily consists of standard singlemode, single-core fibers. CPI has manufactured fanouts for fibers ranging from 2 to 24 cores manufactured by all fiber manufacturers worldwide.

CPI, having many years of hands-on experience with MCF, has also taken a leading role in helping companies benefit from high bandwidth density, smaller footprint and lower weight fiber and cabling featuring MCF. CPI is helping to familiarize companies with the growing ecosystem of MCF fibers, cables, connectors, splicers and cable management products available, in addition to MCF optical components. In this role, CPI has, for example, helped companies design, deploy, install and thoroughly test MCF links.

Applications
MCF adoption is well underway in several markets, including communications, for high bandwidth density, subsea and terrestrial, cables. MCF is also used for 3D shape sensing to enable precise location and movement tracking for applications ranging from minimally invasive surgery to towed sonar arrays to aerodynamics.

Submarine Cables: Submarine communication cables carry more than 99% of all internet traffic, connecting countries and continents. They are a critical part of the global communications infrastructure. With bandwidth demand increasing more than 20% year-over-year, industry is constantly deploying more subsea cables to meet demand. Multicore fiber is uniquely positioned to meet this demand by significantly increasing bandwidth without adding to the cable weight or size. The first submarine cable with multicore fiber is scheduled to be in service by 2025.

Terrestrial Cables: Terrestrial fiber optic cables are used ubiquitously throughout the internet. Using multicore fiber, instead of currently more common single core fiber, increases the bandwidth density. More information can be transmitted within a smaller cable. This can be useful, or even critical, in places where there are space constraints, weight constraints and areas where distance make blowing heavy cables through long distances impossible. In certain urban areas, for example, conduit space under the streets, in which optical fibers are routed, can be in short supply. Running multicore fiber cables may be the only option to avoid the permitting and construction costs necessary to install new conduits. Multicore fiber cables can also reduce installation labor costs because multiple optical channels are spliced with each splice. The first real-world deployment of an MCF cable in a metro network occurred in 2022.

Patents
Chiral Photonics has more than 40 United States and International patents issued and pending relating to its products.