Docket #: S19-291
Chip-integrated Titanium:Sapphire Laser
Stanford researchers at the Vuckovic Lab have developed a full chip-scale integration of a Ti:Sapphire laser system which dramatically reduces the size, cost, and power consumption by many orders of magnitude, compared to today's state-of-the-art systems which are bulky and expensive. The proposed architecture is a microscale Ti:Sapphire laser system, which converts an inexpensive infrared diode light into ultrafast pulses.
Miniaturization and integration with on-chip photonics can revolutionize the field of photonics and have a major impact on many applications, including two-photon microscopy, LIDAR systems and quantum photonics.
The process flow for fabricating this new Ti:Sapphire laser system is similar to the demonstrated technique for fabricating Silicon-Carbide-on-Insulator (SiCOI) devices disclosed in Stanford docket S18-553.
Figure
Figure description - Conceptual figure representing on chip integrated Ti:sapph laser of size on the order of 100 um. Combined with a commercial diode pump, its volume is smaller than one cubic centimeter – many orders of magnitude smaller than the state of the art.
Stage of Development - Proof-of-Concept
Applications
- Broad applications including spectroscopy, bio-medical and physics research
- Specific examples include:
- LiDAR
- Two photon absorption imaging
- Optical clocks
- Integrated quantum photonic devices
Advantages
- Ti:Sapphire is desirable due to its very wide bandwidth and operation as a wide-range (up to 650-110nm) tunable coherent source thus as a ultra-fast pulsed light
- Miniaturization and chip-scale integration:
- Dramatically reduces the size, cost, and power consumption by many orders of magnitude
- Current state-of-the-art systems are bulky and expensive
- Compact device - 1000's of times smaller than state of the art
- Environmentally robust
- Ultra-low threshold powers are possible because of small mode volume and enables battery-powered operation
- Low-temperature operation by integrating chip with thermoelectric cooling and further decreases threshold powers by improving efficiency of Ti3+ radiative decay
- Low cost of materials for individual Ti:Sapphire laser (less than $100)
- Direct integration with portable and on-chip applications
- Standard fabrication methods with standard photo and e-beam lithography and standard nanofabrication tools
Vuckovic Lab wins IET A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize
Photonics Media - "Professor Vuckovic Granted $450K to Create Miniature On-Chip Laser, Feb 2020"
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