This is a Phase II SBIR award. Under Phase I, the technical feasibility of producing an optical force sensor using pressure- induced birefringence has been demonstrated. This research demonstrated that a small force/pressure sensor could be made that has a large dynamic range, low noise, and low sensitivity to isotropic environmental changes such as temperature and pressure. The Phase II research will include the fabrication of an integrated optical tactile array made of gallium arsenide/gallium aluminum arsenide. To accomplish this, the sub-elements required for the array will be modeled, characterized and tested. These elements include waveguides, reflectors, wavelength-specific beam splitters, N-way splitters, lenses, and optical interconnects. The fabrication will be done using molecular beam epitaxy. The optical tactile transducer will be a 3X3 array with sensing sites on 1 mm centers and will be capable of resolving forces of less that one milli-Newton.
