What is the problem being address?
In RENOS we want to develop compact, low cost, power efficient, tunable lasers and frequency combs spanning large bandwidths, exhibiting excellent output beam characteristics, such as the ones achieved in solid-state sources, and expanding the wavelength ranges of typical solid-state materials. Such devices will greatly benefit application fields such as optical sensing, spectroscopy, metrology and telecommunications.
Why is it important for society?
In our digital society, the demand for bandwidth is ever increasing. Furthermore, we are living in an aging society. A paradigm change from curing to prevention will permit ensuring a good quality of life of the population while maintaining a sustainable healthcare system. Compact and energy efficient on-chip laser sources that can provide a much broader range of frequencies spanning from the visible to the mid-IR will represent a major milestone. Such lasers can find applications in communications, datacoms but also in spectroscopy, metrology and optical sensing.
What are the overall objectives?
In RENOS, we study the generation of novel frequencies and frequency combs by stimulated Raman scattering and four-wave mixing in high-contrast waveguides in rare-earth-doped potassium double tungstates materials (RE:KYW) by exploiting both their excellent optical gain properties as well as their large non-linear index of refraction. Different waveguide structures and devices are investigated as well as their integration with passive integrated photonic platforms to enable the development of complex devices with the aforementioned functionalities.
