• Home
  • Members
  • News
  • About
  • Contact us
  • IBN Cluster
Language
  • lang English
  • lang Nederlands
VRIVRI
  • Home
  • Members
  • News
  • About
  • Contact us
  • IBN Cluster

Ghent University, IMEC and collaborators extend the spectrum of frequency comb light sources

10 March 2015 Press articles No Comments

Publishing in Nature Communications, scientists from Ghent University and imec have joined forces with the Max Planck Institute in Garching to realize a frequency comb light source in the mid-IR wavelength band. These frequency comb light sources with an extended spectrum can be used for real-time, extremely high resolution spectroscopy, e.g. to measure the presence and concentration of gas molecules in analytes.

A frequency comb source is a light source with a spectrum containing thousands of laser lines. The development of these sources has been revolutionary for fundamental science. It has allowed the construction of a link between the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the radio frequency part. As such, it has allowed researchers to determine optical frequencies with an unprecedented precision. Amongst others, frequency comb light sources have been used in optical clocks enabling precise time keeping. The enormous impact of frequency comb light sources on science was highlighted in 2005, when the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Prof. T. Haensch and Prof J. Hall for their work on optical frequency metrology using frequency combs.

Lately, frequency combs have been used to target more real life applications. In several experiments, it has been shown that the specific properties of the sources can be used to do fast, high-resolution spectroscopy over a broad spectrum. However, traditional comb sources are not at the right wavelength spectrum for doing spectroscopy.

Ghent University, imec, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching and the Auckland University in New Zealand have developed mid-infrared frequency combs, working in the mid-infrared molecular fingerprinting region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this wavelength region, many molecules have specific absorption bands that can be used in spectroscopy to determine the presence and concentration of these molecules in samples. The researchers successfully realized the broad frequency combs, by combining the strong light-matter interaction in silicon with its broad transparency window. By fabricating so-called nanowire silicon photonics waveguides to confine the light in a very small area waveguide, they further enhanced the strong light-matter interaction allowing them to broaden the spectrum of the frequency combs into the mid-infrared. The achievements were possible through the use of a unique pump laser source, previously developed by ICFO, Spain. The results are an important step towards a small-footprint chip scale mid-infrared frequency comb source. Such sources could act as sensitive cheap gas sensors in the mid-infrared. These would be important for example for environmental monitoring for measuring air-pollution or in medical diagnostics as a cheap tool to do breath analysis. It is worth noting that the reported work has been the result of collaboration between three grants of the European Research Council (ERC), i.e. Multicomb, Miracle and InSpectra.

Read the full article

Tags: ghent universityimec
No Comments
Share
0

You also might be interested in

Imec and SPTS Technologies, an Orbotech Company, Collaborate on Critical Processes for 3D IC Wafer Stacking

Jul 14, 2015

Nano-electronics research center imec and SPTS Technologies, an Orbotech company (NASDAQ: ORBK) and supplier of advanced wafer processing solutions for the global semiconductor and related industries, announced today at SEMICON West that they are jointly developing a highly accurate, short cycle-time dry silicon removal and low temperature passivation solution for through-silicon via-middle processing and thinning of the top-wafer in wafer-to-wafer bonding.

Imec Pushes the Boundaries of Gallium Nitride (GaN) Technology

Aug 12, 2015

World-leading nano-electronics research center imec announced today that it is extending its Gallium Nitride-on-Silicon (GaN-on-Si) R&D program, and is now offering joint research on GaN-on-Si 200mm epitaxy and enhancement mode device technology. The extended R&D initiative includes exploration of novel substrates to improve the quality of the epitaxial layers, new isolation modules to increase the level of integration, and the development of advanced vertical devices. Imec welcomes new partners interested in next generation GaN technologies and companies looking for low-volume manufacturing of GaN-on-Si devices to enable the next generation of more efficient and compact power converters.

Imec presents successors to FinFET for 7nm and beyond at upcoming VLSI Technology Symposium 2015

Jun 18, 2015

At this week’s VLSI 2015 Symposium in Kyoto (Japan), imec reported new results on nanowire FETs and quantum-well FinFETs towards post-FinFET multi-gate device solutions.

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Categories

  • News (30)
  • Press articles (52)
  • Uncategorized (1)

Recent newsletters

2021 - 1
2020 - 4
2020 - 3

> View all newsletters

Upcoming events

Sorry, there are no upcoming events at this moment.

Recent posts

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Webinar ‘ReThinking NewSpace’: connecting up- to downstream with EO innovation
  • Seminar space economy & job fair (Dutch)

CONTACT

Flemish Space Industry
Berkenrodelei 33, 2660 Hoboken
btw BE 0455.534.170

Tel. +32 477 22 88 67
Fax +32 16 20 06 21
contact@vri.vlaanderen

Projects are supported by the FIT

READ MORE ABOUT

antwerpspace antwerp space ghent university imec newtec OIP Systems vito von Karman Institute xenics
Visit the Flanders Space website

STAY INFORMED

Like and follow us on LinkedIn.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

 
 
 
 

© 2023 VRI

Prev Next