Objective
On-chip optical frequency combs (OFC) consist of tens or even hundreds of equidistant laser lines generated from a compact, low-power source. OFCs have become key in a multitude of applications: In spectroscopy, integrated OFC sources are used to detect fine signatures that exoplanets print on starlight spectra. In metrology, the clockwork link between OFC’s optical and RF frequencies has led to the most accurate atomic clocks. In telecom, OFC sources could replace the individual lasers in millions of datacenter transceivers to address the exponential growth of energy consumption and data traffic.
While these applications would certainly benefit from OFC mass fabrication, compactness, and reconfigurability, current sources are still mostly based on multi-platform integration, since monolithic OFCs suffer from bandwidth limitations and poor coherence. In addition, OFCs face a long-standing trade-off between bandwidth and flexibility: broadband combs are challenging to tune, while reconfigurable combs are limited in bandwidth.
With COMBYNE, I will realize a programmable OFC source on a monolithic platform by harnessing the nonlinear dynamics of mutually coupled semiconductor lasers. The central idea is a reconfigurable network of coupled on-chip lasers whose dynamic emissions combine into a single coherent comb and broadband comb on a monolithic platform. Symmetric coupling enables coherent operation, while a common drive locks the network of lasers. The proposed source is fully manufacturable in mature, commercially available generic processes and can be co-integrated with other photonic components, unlike approaches that rely on multi-platform integration.
The scientific objectives are: (1) realize a coupling network that sets, on demand, the line spacing and spectral envelope, (2) develop a path towards scalable OFC bandwidth, (3) provide a programmable coherence knob via laser symmetric coupling, and (4) validate the OFC’s impact in telecom and THz applications.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets exoplanetology
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2026-STG
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1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium
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