industrial applications and commercialization of fs lasers
Industrial Applications and Commercialization of Femtosecond Lasers
The availability of compact, low-cost and robust femtosecond mode-locked lasers can make enormous impacts in various technology fields and finally bring the femtosecond lasers from science laboratories to real-world applications. To achieve this goal, we are currently collaborating with Fi-Ra Photonics Co. and Ajou University to employ the Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) process, which is a well-established process for manufacturing telecommunication-grade silica waveguide devices such as arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs), for fabricating low-cost and mass-producible devices for femtosecond mode-locked lasers. As a first step, we fabricated fiber-pigtailed, PLC-based, evanescent-field-interacting saturable absorbers by coating single-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) film on overcladding-removed waveguides, and employed them in 300-MHz all-fiber mode-locked lasers [1]. We also succeeded in integrating a saturable absorber, a WDM coupler and a tap coupler on a single PLC chip, and used it for implementing an all-PM-fiber laser that is robust against mechanical shocks and vibrations (see video clip below) [2]. The final goal of this project is to realize all-planar, ultralow-jitter and high-repetition-rate femtosecond mode-locked lasers with a nail-sized footprint, which may find many applications in telecommunication and photonic signal processing fields. In parallel, we are also working on commercializing our high-precision microwave photonic devices and sub-systems (such as FLOM-PD and FIRST). We are further applying ultrafast optic metrology techniques for semiconductor device manufacturing processes.
[Mode-locked state of the all-PM-fiber laser with a PLC-WDM/SA/tap device (laser under test) remains well during the mechanical perturbation experiment (Source: C. Kim et al, Opt. Lett. 42, 1472 (2017))]
Related Publications
[1] C. Kim, D. Kim, Y. Cheong, D. Kwon, S. Choi, H. Jeong, S. J. Cha, J. Lee, D.-I. Yeom, F. Rotermund, and J. Kim, "300-MHz-repetition-rate, all-fiber, femtosecond laser mode-locked by planar lightwave circuit-based saturable absorber," Opt. Express 23, 26234 (2015)
[2] C. Kim, D. Kwon, D. Kim, S. Choi, S. Cha, K. Choi, D. Yeom, F. Rotermund, and J. Kim, "Robust, low-noise, polarization-maintaining mode-locked Er-fiber laser with a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) device as a multi-functional element," Opt. Lett. 42, 1472 (2017)
