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STAND

STAND will focus on exploring market opportunities, commercial potential, and first industrial testing of standalone soliton microcomb modules. The project will be carried out by EPFL as Coordinator

TECHNOLOGY

A pump laser is coupled to a Silicon Nitride microresonator with an exceptionally high quality factor. Four-wave mixing processes give rise to equidistant and coherent optical lines: an optical frequency comb. The coherence of the comb lines is directly linked to the existence of a single temporal soliton inside the resonator, a phenomenon firstly observed in the host laboratory [1].

Microcombs have a unique potential in

massively-parallel telecommunications, distance ranging (LiDAR), dual-comb spectroscopy, optical frequency synthesis and photonic-based computing.

Technology transfer to market

The main challenge of regular, bulky, optical comb systems is that the technology is hindered in the lab environment: it relies on complex and expensive setups, advanced laser equipment and specific skills of trained professionals. The project STAND aims to dramatically change this paradigm.

In the context of this project we are building an incredibly compact device in an industry-proven butterfly package, with many appealing features:
  • Comb repetition rate: 10-100 GHz
  • Linewidth < 100 kHz, up to 50 lines
  • Turnkey operation

Wafer-scale production

The phtonic integrated circuits (PICs) contained in the developed device are fabricated on a wafer-scale, dramatically reducing the production costs.

Excellent spectral purity

Our devices will exhibit extremely narrow linewidths thanks to a phenomenon called Self Injection Locking (SIL) [2]. Having such a pure laser emission enables selective sensitive measurements and improves signal-to-noise ratio.

Frequency agility

Thanks to a unique AlN piezoelectric stack built on top of the Si3N4 resonator, we are able [3] to fastly tune the emission spectrum with bandwiths up to 10 MHz [4]. This opens the door to applications like coherent LiDAR [5].

MARKET SEGMENTS

Such a compact microcomb device can address an emerging bottleneck in the segment of data center interconnects (DCI) and data center networks (DCN), that need cost- and energy- efficient optical sources for coherent Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) communications.

The proposed product will make the technology available to a broad research community encompassing academic institutions and research labs of large technological giants interested in soliton microcomb from a research perspective or technology evaluation as OEM solution for their existing products.

Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) covers automotive, farming and manufacturing industries, where soliton microcombs can be used for rapid and precise distance measurements [5].

The present project will also explore soliton microcombs for high-performance fully integrated ultra-wideband analog-to-digital (ADC) converters.

PROJECT OUTCOME

  • We will idetify a market interest in compact soliton microcombs, reaching potential customers in the most promising markets (LiDAR, DCI, T&M, ADC).
  • We will focus on soliton microcomb technology dissemination, presenting the prototype at tradeshows to raise market awareness about the technology and its availability to customers.
  • After finding first potential customers, we will adapt the system performance of prototypes based on their needs. This objective aims to further enhance the customer-market fit by directly interacting with customers and addressing their needs and limitations with a customised soliton microcomb solution.
  1. Herr, T. et al. Temporal solitons in optical microresonators. Nat Photon 8, 145–152 (2014).
  2. Voloshin, A.S., Kondratiev, N.M., Lihachev, G.V. et al. Dynamics of soliton self-injection locking in optical microresonators. Nat Commun 12, 235 (2021).
  3. Liu, J., Tian, H., Lucas, E. et al. Monolithic piezoelectric control of soliton microcombs. Nature 583, 385–390 (2020).
  4. Lihachev, G., Riemensberger, J., Weng, W., et. al. Ultralow-noise frequency-agile photonic integrated lasers. ArXiv:2104.02990 (2021)
  5. Riemensberger, J., Lukashchuk, A., Karpov, M. et al. Massively parallel coherent laser ranging using a soliton microcomb. Nature 581, 164–170 (2020)