ORSAM – Optical Reference Systems via Additive Manufacturing

ORSAM致力于解决关键的国家基础设施挑战，即在电信核心和移动接入网络内提供具有成本效益、弹性和分布式的计时，我们都依赖这些网络来提供紧急服务网络、数据中心接入和互联、工业物联网、金融交易和几乎所有其他形式的数据接入、视频流和通信。从根本上说，现代通信网络严重依赖于本地和网络级别的定时和同步。附加制造(AM)，通常被称为“3D打印”，是一项关键的新兴技术，可以在寻求使光学机械设备更轻、对外部环境不那么敏感以及更容易/更便宜制造的过程中实现跨越式的转变。AM允许快速、经济高效地制造几何复杂的部件，其特点是性能增强的结构，这些结构通过传统方法几乎不可能或极其昂贵和费力地生产。到目前为止，AM在光力学中的应用非常有限。发展设计方法和利用AM技术应用于光机械设备将是未来电信和量子工业的关键。伯明翰大学开发的AM光学参考腔的最新技术代表了AM在TFS部门的适用性及其潜在好处的令人信服的原理证明，表明适合通过AM制造的优化的、振动不敏感的腔可以设计、模拟和由因瓦尔构造。ORSAM项目旨在更进一步，充分利用AM的优势，生产弹性和轻量化的光学基准，用于实验室以外的偏远地点的关键基础设施中。证明AM对光学机械部件的有效性将在量子领域打开一个新的市场，并将其应用扩展到其他领域，如传感、医学成像和分析设备。

ORSAM seeks to address the critical national infrastructure challenge of delivering cost effective, resilient, distributed timing within the telecommunications core and mobile access networks that we all depend on to deliver the emergency service network, data centre access and interconnect, Industrial IoT, financial transactions and nearly all other forms of data access, video streaming and communications. Fundamentally the modern communications network is critically dependent on local, and network level timing and synchronisation.Additive Manufacturing (AM), more commonly known as "3D printing", is a key emerging technology that can provide a step-change in the quest to make optomechanical devices lighter, less sensitive to their external environment and easier/cheaper to manufacture. AM allows the rapid, cost-effective manufacture of geometrically complex parts, featuring performance-enhancing structures that would be near impossible or extremely expensive and laborious to produce via conventional methods. So far, the application of AM within opto-mechanics has been extremely limited. Developing design methods and exploiting AM techniques for applications in optomechanical devices will be key to the future of the telecommunications and quantum industries.The current state-of-the-art in AM optical reference cavities, developed by the University of Birmingham represents a convincing proof-of-principle of the applicability of AM within the TFS sector and the potential benefits it offers, showing that an optimised, vibration insensitive cavity suitable for manufacturing via AM can be designed, simulated and constructed from Invar. Project ORSAM aims to take this further and fully exploit the benefits of AM to produce resilient and lightweight optical references for use in critical infrastructure in remote locations outside of laboratory settings. Proving the efficacy of AM for optomechanical components will open a new market within the quantum sector and extend its application into other areas such as sensing, medical imaging and analytical equipment.