Integrated femtosecond laser based frequency comb and photonic microwave oscillator

In femto-iCOMB, we develop the first integrated femtosecond laser-based frequency comb that can serve as the basis for a wide variety of optical and Radio-Frequency (RF) technologies ranging from high resolution environmental and health sensing to LIDAR and RADAR.

Femto-iCOMB is based on the successful EIC-pathfinder project FEMTOCHIP, where we demonstrate an integrated high power femtosecond laser enabling extremely low jitter on chip scale.

Here, we tam the free running comb from the integrated femtosecond laser with on-chip continuum generation, carrier-envelope and repetition rate locking to an optical reference to become a fully stabilized femtosecond laser frequency comb (FSLFC) with extremely high frequency stability.

We use the femto-iCOMB to pursue photonic microwave oscillators for a variety of applications ranging from autonomous driving to ultra-low phase noise oscillators for advanced signal generators and RF-test and measurement equipment and demonstrate these devices in relevant industrial environments for each application.

These prototype field tests will validate the TRL levels achieved for each application and together with surveys of potential customers will inform the business case to be made for each potential product line.