Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STAND (Standalone soliton microcomb system)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31
The STAND project aimed to exploit low-power packaged soliton microcombs developed under the FET-OPEN Programme TERASLICE and implement them as turnkey standalone systems. Soliton microcombs are a disruptive technology, discovered and pioneered by EPFL. They represent chip-scale optical frequency comb (OFC) sources that operate on an entirely different principle than conventional OFCs: parametric nonlinear frequency conversion of a single-frequency laser driving compact-footprint optical microresonator. Microcombs provide access to OFCs with large comb line spacing (10 - 1000 GHz), which are able to operate with low power and cover large spectral bandwidth while having ultra-low-noise performance. A strong advantage of the technology is that microcombs can be mass-fabricated using wafer-scale manufacturing and, in contrast to conventional bulk and expensive OFC solutions, can make frequency combs ubiquitous. Due to their unique potential, the microcombs were intensively investigated over the past years leading to a rapid advancement of the field, which in a few years jumped from the first exploration of microcomb Physics to real-world applications of soliton microcombs in massively-parallel telecommunications, distance ranging (LiDAR), dual-comb spectroscopy, optical frequency synthesis and photonic-based computing. While spearheading the technology development, EPFL has recently identified a clear interest in compact soliton microcomb systems from industrial and scientific partners. Despite a promising potential of soliton microcombs for applications, the technology however is still hindered in the laboratory: it relies on bulk and expensive laboratory setups and unique expertise of researchers with the technology. To date, there is no product that could provide a solution based on the soliton microcomb technology to the market and allow early adopters to evaluate the prototypes. The goal of the STAND project is to build and bring to the market an optical frequency comb based on an optical microresonator and customized for end-user applications. In this project, we have built the first prototype of a cost-effective and compact soliton microcomb system suitable for telecommunication applications, as well as investigated other market opportunities and performed testing of a prototype with an industrial partner.
The EPFL team identified a market interest in compact soliton microcombs, which included the definition of the most promising markets (e.g. LiDAR, data center interconnects, test and measurements, ADC market). EPFL chose to focus on the following markets and estimated the market opportunity: Telecom & Data Centers; Photonic computing; Test & Measurements; Coherent Laser Ranging. We put forth considerable efforts in meeting with potential customers, and assessing the product-market fit. EPFL participated and presented protopes at three major events in the photonics industry to present the prototype and received request to provide prototypes of the fully integrated comb systems from more than 50 companies, including industry leaders in communications and automotive industry. Using the customers’ feedback and interviews, we carried out prototype adaptation for industrial testing. The product with the initial pricing strategy was sufficient for the Test&Measurement Market, but it had to be adapted to be on demand with other high-volume industrial applications. To reduce the cost of the system, we utilized a novel class of hybrid integrated lasers and fully integrated optical frequency combs with the capability of frequency chirping. Such a laser packaged in an industrial-grade 14-pin “butterfly” package is at the core of the comb unit and enables cost-efficient and high-volume production. EPFL tested the prototypes and engaged with one leading vendor of photonic solutions who performed testing of a demonstrator at its’ facilities. In addition to these events targeted to professionals, EPFL presented the technology at EPFL’s public outreach events at the Scientastic festival 2022 (Lausanne, Switzerland) and Nuit de la Science / Science Nights 2022 (Geneva, Switzerland) allowing broad audiences to witness how research ideas are transformed into technologies in the lab and transferred to the market for commercialization.
An optical combs source exploits laser self-injection locking of InP distributed feedback (DBF) laser diode to a photonic silicon nitride microresonator with an integrated AlN piezoelectric actuator based on MEMS technology. For the first time, we demonstrated the chirped optical frequency comb. This regime is crucial for coherent telecommunication, chemical detection and multi-channel FMCW LiDAR systems. The RMS nonlinearity was 0.95% for all comb lines. Notably, this variation is one order of magnitude smaller than previous results using external laser pumping. This regime is crucial for multi-channel FMCW LiDAR systems using dispersive channel multiplexing such as photonic integrated optical phased arrays. In addition, this system could be operated in a dual-comb regime which significantly relaxes the requirements for the equipment and eliminates the need for telecom equipment such as a costly demultiplexer (which has been used in the proof-of-concept demonstration). STAND became the first project which offered a fully integrated optical frequency comb to the market and most significantly optimized the concept to reduce the price of the system, thus offering a cost-effect and affordable solution. EPFL is now offering a packaged sample to the current partners and encouraging former and new partners to use this technology in future EU programs. We defined the next steps towards industrialization and commercialization of the technology via a start-up company to contribute to the competitiveness of the European industry/economy and to create new jobs.