Researchers have created a high-power tunable laser on silicon photonics, achieving nearly 2 watts using an LMA amplifier. This advancement could revolutionize integrated photonics, with potential applications in space exploration, reducing satellite costs while enhancing capabilities.
In today’s world, the size of various systems continues to decrease, incorporating increasingly smaller components for applications like high-speed data centers and space exploration with compact satellites.
However, this trend toward miniaturization and high-density integration—driven by advancements in integrated photonics—has significantly compromised the ability of these systems to generate high signal power. Traditionally, high-power output has been associated with larger systems, such as fiber and solid-state platforms, whose substantial physical dimensions allow for greater energy storage.
In contrast, micron- to millimeter-scale systems, including those based on integrated photonics, possess far lower optical energy storage capacity than their larger, benchtop counterparts. As a result, their power generation capabilities remain inherently limited.
Need for High-Power Signal Generation in Silicon Photonics
In order to achieve large-scale deployment of highly functional, mass-producible silicon photonics systems and replace bulky benchtop system, it is imperative that silicon photonics-based lasers and amplifiers generate high power signal at a level comparable to benchtop systems.
Recently, researchers in Germany, led by Dr. Neetesh Singh and Prof. Franz Kärtner, have demonstrated a very high-power tunable laser reaching close to 2 Watts of output power, thanks to the recently conceived large-mode-area (LMA) integrated waveguide amplifier on silicon photonics.
The researchers envisage that such a device can have a disruptive impact in the field of photonics, and may allow integrated photonics devices to be implemented at a large scale across various fields.
A potential application could be that, such a high-power tunable laser operating at long wavelength window is deployed in small-scale satellites to sense and map out ( with technologies such as LIDAR), molecules essential for life in outer space; for example, carbon dioxide, water and ammonia. The high-power tunable laser based on LMA silicon photonics will reduce the system size, weight, and cost by several orders of magnitude compared to the conventional fiber or solid state-based systems allowing multiple cost-effective space missions with highly enhanced capabilities not possible before.
Reference: “Sub-2W tunable laser based on silicon photonics power amplifier” by Neetesh Singh, Jan Lorenzen, Muharrem Kilinc, Kai Wang, Milan Sinobad, Henry Francis, Jose Carreira, Michael Geiselmann, Umit Demirbas, Mikhail Pergament, Sonia M. Garcia-Blanco and Franz X. Kärtner, 2 January 2025, Light: Science & Applications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41377-024-01681-1
This research received funding from the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme and German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SP2111) progam.
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