QUALIFIED. DEPLOYED. PROVEN.

Harsh Environments

Harsh environments push photonic integrated circuits (PICs) beyond normal operating conditions. Temperature swings, vibration, shock, magnetic interference and radiation can all degrade optical performance over time. PhotonFirst packages PICs so they keep working under these conditions, not only in the lab.

THIS IS WHAT HARSH ENVIRONMENTS MEAN TO US

What's Required for Harsh-Environment PIC Packaging

Packaging a PIC for aerospace, defense or energy use means meeting recognized environmental and quality standards. These standards define how a package is tested, and what it needs to survive, before it can be trusted in the field. They generally fall into three areas.

Environmental qualification
Environmental qualification covers physical stress, such as temperature, vibration, shock and altitude.
Electromagnetic compatibility
Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) covers how a package behaves around other electronics, including magnetic interference.
Quality management
Quality management covers how consistently a package is built, prototype after prototype, batch after batch.

These aren’t separate boxes to check. A package that survives vibration testing but fails EMC, or performs well once but not reliably at volume, still isn’t ready for deployment. That’s why we design against all three from the first prototype, rather than treating qualification as a final step before shipping.

A failure in any one of these areas can ground a system, delay a program, or force a costly redesign late in development, when changes are most expensive to make.

MIL-STD-810. MIL-STD-461. MIL-STD-704. DO-160G.

The standards we bring into our designs

MIL-STD - Environmental and EMC testing

MIL-STD-810 is the U.S. defense standard for environmental engineering. It defines individual test methods for specific conditions e.g.:

  • Method 501 for high temperature
  • Method 502 for low temperature
  • Method 503 for temperature shock
  • Method 514 for vibration
  • Method 516 for mechanical shock, among others.


Each method sets out how the test is run and what counts as a pass, so packages from different suppliers can be compared on equal terms.

MIL-STD-461 covers electromagnetic compatibility (EMC): how much electromagnetic energy a package may emit, and how much interference it must tolerate from its surroundings. It includes tests such as RE102 for radiated electric-field emissions and RS103 for radiated electric-field susceptibility, alongside RE101 and RS101 for magnetic-field emissions and susceptibility (COM-POWER; RF Essentials).

MIL-STD-704 rounds this out on the electrical side. It defines the power an aircraft supplies to its equipment, covering voltage, frequency and power quality across six operating conditions, including normal power, power transfers and engine starting. For any electronics packaged alongside a PIC, this determines what kind of power input the design needs to tolerate without failing.

Together, MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461 and MIL-STD-704 give us a structured way to test a package’s physical, electromagnetic and electrical resilience before it leaves our facility.

DO-160G - Qualifying equipment for aircraft

DO-160G is the aerospace industry’s standard for qualifying equipment installed on aircraft, jointly published by RTCA and EUROCAE. It’s organized into 26 sections, each addressing a specific environmental stress — including temperature and altitude (Section 4), temperature variation (Section 5), operational shock (Section 7), vibration (Section 8), magnetic effect (Section 15) and electrostatic discharge (Section 25). The severity a package must withstand depends on where it sits on the aircraft, from a protected interior bay to an exposed wing or engine mount.

ISO 9001 - Consistent quality, every batch

PhotonFirst is ISO 9001 certified. This means our packaging process is documented, monitored and continuously improved, so the same quality standard applies whether we’re building a single prototype or a production batch.

ESD - A tool for quality, not just a checkbox

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is one of the more common causes of hidden damage in photonic and hybrid assemblies. A single discharge event, often too small to notice at the time, can quietly reduce performance without any visible sign.

We manage this risk with a Class 0 ESD Control Program aligned with IEC 61340, covering handling, packaging and cleanroom assembly. Every team member is trained through the PhotonFirst Academy, and dedicated ESD and cleanroom coordinators monitor conditions and carry out regular audits.

For us, ESD control isn’t only about passing an audit. It protects packaging yield, and ultimately, the reliability of what you receive.

Temperature. Vibration. Shocks & impact. Magnetic fields. Radiation.

Harsh environment challenges we design for

Temperature

Wide temperature swings affect fiber alignment and optical performance. PICs need to operate reliably from cold storage to sustained heat. We address this through material selection, thermal design and TEC integration, in line with the temperature and temperature-shock requirements in MIL-STD-810 and DO-160G Sections 4 and 5.

Vibration

Continuous vibration can gradually shift fiber-to-chip alignment. We use laser-welded fiber attachment and rugged bonding methods to keep the optical path stable, tested against the vibration profiles defined in MIL-STD-810 and DO-160G Section 8.

Shocks & Impact

A single shock event, such as a hard landing or a drop during handling, can misalign a fiber by only a few microns, enough to affect signal quality. Our mechanical design and bonding methods are built to absorb these impacts, in line with the shock requirements in MIL-STD-810 and DO-160G Section 7.

Magnetic Fields

Magnetic interference can disturb sensitive optical and electronic components. We design and shield our packages to limit this effect, addressing requirements such as DO-160G Section 15 (Magnetic Effect) and MIL-STD-461.

Radiation

Space, nuclear and high-altitude applications expose PICs to radiation levels that standard optics can’t tolerate. We’ve packaged for this directly, including a radiation-hardened sun sensor developed for space applications with Lens R&D.