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.
