DC FlexMIL · Development and Control of Flexible Mode-locked Integrated Laser
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-01-01 → 2018-12-31
- EU contribution
- €255,350
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Development and Control of Flexible Mode-locked Integrated Laser
The DC FlexMIL project aims at the development, characterization and control of a novel class of pulsed light source to reach new stable, flexibly shapeable emission properties within an integrable format (i.e. on-chip). Pulsed light sources have boosted over the past years several important applications including precision metrology, nonlinear microscopy as well as high-capacity telecommunications and are today established devices in optical laboratories. The realization of these sources in compact forms (i.e. their integration on chip) will represent benefits in terms of performances, complexity management, costs, handling and power consumption (fundamental aspects for the development of a commercial technology). These advances in combination with improving the light sources controllability towards highly flexible emission properties (e.g., the temporal and spectral pulse shape, etc.) easily adaptable to various requirements, are necessary for novel applications in e.g. metrology and quantum science and for enabling their out-of-lab operation and widespread use. DC FlexMIL is aimed at advancing the realization of a controllable, integrable pulsed light source technology. The objectives of DC FlexMIL are therefore the investigation and design of laser concepts allowing radiation control based on nonlinear optical interactions within integrated structures, and their implementation towards realizing integrated light sources for classical and non-classical applications. Furthermore, the project objectives include the training of the research fellow in related disciplines to advance their career development towards a successful independent researcher.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This proposal aims at the development, characterization and control of a novel class of high repetition rate ultra-short pulse lasers featured by stable, flexibly shapeable emission properties combined in an integrated format (i.e. on chip). The associated benefits in terms of cost, size, and power consumption paired with the intrinsic flexibility are unquestionably significant characteristics to fulfil the dynamic needs of numerous sophisticated applications in the broad areas of metrology, telecommunications, microchip-computing etc., and will in turn enable to finally bring these innovative integrated lasers to the public market. By exploiting a high-Q microring resonator, a novel mode-locking approach named filter driven four-wave mixing (FD-FWM) will be used to achieve stable high-quality spectral emission. Enabled by this scheme, we will investigate and exploit the interesting effect of higher-order modulation instability dynamics (a higher-order characteristic of the mechanism responsible for laser mode-locking, not yet explored), to control and shape the emission as well as the noise properties of the proposed integrated laser device. In particular this will be achieved by dynamically controlling the main cavity dispersion of the system via incorporated specially designed Bragg grating waveguides. In parallel with the investigations on the controllability of the laser emission, the integration of the whole device will be pushed forward by designing and fabricating microring resonators based on silicon (oxy)nitrite technology as well as by developing a novel miniaturized laser scheme based on semiconductor optical amplifiers. The external optical control possibilities of the laser scheme proposed here will be exploited with a view to synchronize two lasers, a highly important achievement for next generation multi-source telecommunication networks.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW · GlasgowCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
- INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE · QUEBECCanada
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union