Compact and Eye-Safe Laser Source on a Silicon Chip for Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) Systems in Self-Driving Vehicles

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Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors will be critical elements in future fully-automated self-driving vehicles, which will provide a safer and more accessible way for us to travel. LIDAR sensors send and receive light signals to rapidly detect the distance and speed of objects around the vehicle, allowing for the vehicle to react to its environment. Currently, fiber-based lasers are used as high-performance and eye-safe light sources for LIDAR sensors, but they are relatively large and their size cannot be further reduced. In order to meet the envisioned goal of their implementation in all future vehicles, automotive LIDAR systems must be more compact, while also being low-cost and mass producible. In this project, researchers at McMaster University in partnership with ITF Technologies will develop new highly compact lasers and photonic microsystems for LIDAR sensors. The McMaster University team will build on their expertise in rare-earth-doped thin film laser materials and silicon photonic microsystems to develop new ultra-compact, low-cost components for ITF Technologies' LIDAR systems. Specifically, the McMaster team will build new erbium-ytterbium-co-doped oxide glass lasers and optical amplifiers that will be fabricated at McMaster University, emit at eye-safe wavelengths, and have higher efficiencies and output powers than those developed previously, and explore silicon photonic optical modulators and systems that will allow ITF Technologies to shrink the overall optical system in their LIDAR sensors. The research and development to be carried out in this project will provide HQP training in Canada in a growing field. This partnership will lead to new technologies developed in Canada with significant economic impact and global importance based on their application in the automotive industry.