Steering Committee Meeting in Hamburg

Steering Committee Meeting for femto-iCOMB Project held in Hamburg

Hamburg, 20th March 2024 — The femto-iCOMB project has progressed for almost one year now. These days, we met in Hamburg for technical and personal exchange as well as alignment on the next steps. Here, the meeting was about the design of the femto-iCOMB technology, all the interfaces and the first fabrication rounds including SiN platform and gain deposition with Er-doping within dedicated and/or MPW runs.

Key Highlights:

Status of Objectives: Each partner showed its development status and gave an update on the next steps. Here, focus was on the modelocked laser design, design of the reference laser, the full-wafer photonic integrated PIC platform, waferscale gain deposition as well as lithium niobate progress.

Technical alignment: The face-to-face meeting was very fruitful to align on the (optical) interfaces between all components and how to handle fabrication with all the hand-over points between the beneficiaries. Since the femto-iCOMB chip is a very complex PIC a well planning is crucial for integration.

Risk management: No project without risks. Alignment on foreseen and brainstorming on unforeseen risks as well as alternative fabrication routes if problems occur will enhance safety of reaching milestones and project objectives.

Conclusion and Next Steps: This important Steering Committee Meeting in Hamburg paved the way for the next steps including fabrication of first test samples including all needed subcomponents. Here, the partners aligned on a clear roadmap to be able to get first light within the next few months.

About Femto-iCOMB: Femto-iCOMB is an innovative project focused on developing the first integrated femtosecond laser-based frequency comb. Building on the EIC-pathfinder project FEMTOCHIP, femto-iCOMB aims to revolutionize a wide variety of optical and RF technologies, from environmental sensing to autonomous driving and advanced signal generators.

Press Contact: Dr. Thomas Schwarzbaeck EurA AG

+49 7961 9256-251

thomas.schwarzbaeck@eura-ag.de

Stay tuned for updates on our exciting journey towards technological excellence!