Rare Earth Amplifier Chips (REACh)

Vescent Technologies, Inc. in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory proposes to develop on-chip amplifiers for the optical telecommunications C-band based on silicon-nitride photonic-integrated circuits (PICs) doped with erbium to advance chip-scale laser and optical amplifier technologies capable of supporting next-generation space-deployed NASA missions including optical clocks (including Sr and Yb lattice and ion clocks), free-space communications, and quantum sensors as called out in NASA’s Decadal Surveys and Civil Space Shortfall Rankings. Importantly, though we will initially focus on erbium due to the robustness of telecommunications infrastructures, this work is extendable to other rare-earth ions (e.g. Yb, Tm, Nd) that support optical gain from ~1000 to 2000 nm wavelengths and can be integrated with existing nonlinear PICs to extend the optical spectrum into the visible. The size reduction of chip-scale laser systems is critical for space-deployed applications because temperature control and radiation shielding of critical technology elements are often required to achieve the laser performance levels required by quantum applications. This technology, if funded, offers critical pathways for NASA to achieve high performance laser systems at dramatically lower size, weight, and power plus cost than commercially available systems with an ability to operate in space.