A new technology for low cost, high performance ultrafast optical clocks

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This NSERC project is concerned with the market study for the development of a novel technology that will allow the commercialization of high performance optical clocks having an unprecedented speed. Optical frequency combs are devices capable of emitting light with a comb spectrum composed by narrow lines (i.e. colours) with a fixed frequency spacing. Their introduction gave to Science powerful devices capable to measure the frequency of light and create ultrafast clocks characterized by unprecedented accuracy, unveiling new science in astronomy, geology, biology and many other fields. Their importance has been prominently recognized in the 2005 Nobel Award to T. W. Hänsch and J. Hall. The possibility to miniaturize these sources with strategies meeting the requirements of current electronic platforms would not only produce affordable and low consumption optical sources for ultrafast optical communication and metrological applications, but could bring a greater revolution in the current microchip technology, promoting a "photonic transition" of current electronic microprocessors. The recent realization of optical frequency combs sources exploiting miniaturized resonators represents a fundamental advance towards this direction. However, these sources suffer a number of technical limitations that make them unpractical for real applications. The first success in realizing an optical clock exploiting a micro-resonator has been obtained at INRS-EMT, where scientists developed a novel mode-locking principle for high repetition rate lasers, embedding a nonlinear high-quality resonator in a fibre laser cavity. This technology is extremely economical and compact: the micro-resonator is integrated on a chip made using CMOS-compatible methods, while the rest of the laser is a standard optical fiber that can be wound on a spool of about 1 cm in diameter. The simplicity of this concept may well lead to the cost performance and mass-reproducible characteristics that are prerequisite to successful commercialization, hence we strongly believe that a market study for this innovative technology is extremely timing and will certainly contribute to reinforce the impact of the Canadian Photonic Industry on the international scene.