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FEMTOSECOND LASER ON A CHIP

Project description

Innovative femtosecond laser

Femtosecond lasers have enabled the direct measurement of optical frequencies and the realisation of optical clocks. Femtosecond lasers present a high potential for a wide range of applications. However, the technology’s large size and high cost restrict its applications. The EU-funded FEMTOCHIP project will deliver a fully integrated chip-scale mode-locked laser with pulse energy, peak power and jitter specifications of a shoebox-sized fibre laser system. The innovation will permit the performance of a considerable part of femtosecond laser applications. The project will address key challenges to facilitate high pulse peak power and overpower while suppressing Q-switching instabilities. It will perform short pulse production by on-chip dispersion compensation and artificial saturable absorption.

Objective

Over the last 20 years, femtosecond lasers have led to a host of novel scientific and industrial instrumentation enabling the direct measurement of optical frequencies and the realization of optical clocks, a Nobel Prize winning technology. Initially developed for fundamental science, the potential of femtosecond lasers for a wide range of cross-disciplinary applications has been demonstrated, including e.g. those in optical telecommunication, photonic analog-to-digital conversion, ultra-high precision signal sources for the upcoming quantum technologies and broadband optical spectroscopy in the environmental or bio-medical sciences and many more.
Although, impressive cross-disciplinary demonstrations of the potential of femtosecond lasers are numerous, the technology has been hampered by its large size and high cost per system. The existing mode-locked semiconductor diode laser technology does not fulfil the needed performance specifications. The aim of the FEMTOCHIP project is to deliver a fully integrated chip-scale mode-locked laser with pulse energy, peak power and jitter specifications of a shoebox sized fiber laser system enabling a large fraction of the above-mentioned applications. Key challenges addressed are large cross-section, high gain, low background loss waveguide amplifiers, low loss passive waveguide technology and chirped waveguide gratings to accommodate high pulse peak power, to suppress Q-switching instabilities and to implement short pulse production by on-chip dispersion compensation and artificial saturable absorption.
Therefore, the FEMTOCHIP consortium is composed of leaders in CMOS compatible ultra-low loss integrated SiN-photonics, rare-earth gain media development and deposition technology as well as ultrafast laser physics and technology for design, simulation and characterization to identify and address the key challenges in demonstrating a highly stable integrated femtosecond laser with table-top performance.

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Keywords

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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RIA - Research and Innovation action

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2020

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Coordinator

DEUTSCHES ELEKTRONEN-SYNCHROTRON DESY
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 080 000,00
Address
NOTKESTRASSE 85
22607 HAMBURG
Germany

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Region
Hamburg Hamburg Hamburg
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 080 000,00

Participants (5)

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