Lightwave Logic, Inc. announced the issuance of a U.S. patent, the application of which was announced in April 2022, on a new invention that will simplify polymer modulator fabrication when integrated with silicon photonics for high-volume foundry manufacturing applications. This patent issuance – entitled "TFP (thin film polymer) optical transition device and method," – illustrates the design of a simpler to fabricate, lower cost hybrid integrated photonics chip using electro-optic polymers which are more advantageous for high-volume production. The simplified fabrication approach enables streamlined production of very high speed, low power proprietary polymer modulators that will enable significantly faster data rates in the internet environment.

The essence of the invention is a hybrid polymer-silicon photonics engine that fits into fiber optic transceivers (either pluggable or co-packaged) that are used in the routers, servers and network equipment that are proliferating with the growth of data centers, cloud computing and optical communications capacity. The hybrid polymer-silicon photonics engine is designed to use high-volume silicon foundry infrastructure and is published under patent number US 11,435,603 B2.