MIRCOMB · Chip-based mid-infrared frequency combs
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-09-01 → 2018-08-31
- EU contribution
- €175,420
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Chip-based mid-infrared frequency combs
Mid-infrared (Mid-IR) range (i.e. the spectral window 2.5—10 μm) is considered as the golden mine for molecular spectroscopy, where most materials feature strong absorptions due to molecular transitions, e.g. hydrogen bonds (N-H, O-H and C-H) show absorptions in the range 2.5—4.0 μm (4000—2500 cm-1), and the absorption strengths are usually 10 to 1000 times greater than those in the visible and near-infrared ranges. Triggered by a significant number of applications such as pharmaceutical, environmental or medical breath analysis, mid-IR spectroscopy has attracted substantial attention in the past decade. The development of mid-IR spectroscopy is mainly focusing on the creation of robust and coherent mid-IR sources, while a compact and simple system configuration is also required for potential applications beyond the laboratory frame. MIRCOMB aimed to demonstrate a coherent and broadband mid-IR frequency comb based on integrated and compatible photonic platforms. A mid-IR frequency comb is a series of lasers with equal spacing between frequencies in the mid-infrared range. The innovative approach was to transplant the Kerr frequency comb technology into the mid-IR spectral range, which enables coherent optical frequency combs with high compactness. This approach was invented by the host EPFL group and has found great success in the near-infrared telecommunication range in the past decade, but still remains quite unexplored in the mid-IR range. Moreover, we have investigated the approach of photonic chip-based coherent supercontinuum process that also represents an efficient and compact solution to the mid-IR frequency comb generation. The project consists of two primary phases: (phase I) mid-IR frequency comb generation in photonic chip-based silicon nitride platform; and (phase II) mid-IR dual comb spectroscopy.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The mid-infrared (MIR) spectral window is a gold mine for molecular spectroscopy and chemical/biological sensing, where the absorption strengths of molecular transitions are 10 to 1000 times greater than those in the visible or near-infrared (NIR), offering the potential to identify the presence of substances with extremely high sensitivity and selectivity, and is thus a powerful tool for scientific, commercial, industrial, and military applications. Future developments of MIR spectroscopy require the creation of robust, coherent sources that can operate with high precision, over a broad bandwidth, and over a wide range of environmental conditions. Quantum cascaded laser (QCL) is one of the most successful realization of MIR laser sources. While QCLs offer excellent spectral coverage in MIR, their use in spectroscopy is primarily restricted to continuous-wave (CW) techniques, since they are difficult to mode-locking.In this proposal, we provide a technology to transfer such powerful CW MIR laser light into coherent and broadband optical frequency combs with high precision, which is an ideal MIR source to spectroscopy. The technology is based on chip-scaled silicon-based micro-resonators which has shown successful frequency comb generations in near-infrared with mode spacing in micro-wave range, octave-spanning bandwidth and compact form. The formation of temporal dissipative solitons in such resonators further leads to a fully coherent frequency comb with access to ultrashort femtosecond pulses.In this two-year project, we aim to implement chip-based MIR frequency combs, including finalizing a reliable MIR photonics platform that could provide high-quality and high-finesse micro-resonators, generating MIR soliton-based fully coherent frequency combs that have broad bandwidth under dispersion engineering on resonator waveguides, and accomplishing a dual-comb based MIR spectroscopy system that could provide high-speed, high-sensitive and broadband detections.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE · LausanneCoordinatorSwitzerland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union