Products and Services
Octave Photonics manufactures packaged, ready-to-use photonic devices to enable next generation lasers and frequency combs.
Additionally, the Octave Photonics team has extensive experience with nonlinear photonics, packaging photonic devices, and electro-optic frequency combs, and we work closely with customers to develop customized devices and systems.
Products
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Custom Nanophotonic Devices and Research
Nonlinear waveguides, micro-resonators, and photonic circuits custom-made for specific applications
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Packaged Supercontinuum Generation Waveguides
Ultrabroad spectra and low-power frequency comb self-referencing in a ready-to-use package
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Comb Offset Stabilization Module (COSMO)
A compact device to detect the carrier-envelope-offset frequency of a laser frequency comb
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Electro-Optic Frequency Combs (Astrocombs)
Femtosecond lasers and frequency combs with GHz repetition rates
PRODUCT
Custom Nonlinear Nanophotonic Devices and Research
Nanophotonic devices open a world of possibilities for nonlinear optics. For example, nanophotonic waveguides enable supercontinuum generation with pulse energies far lower than with traditional nonlinear fibers. Similarly, micro-resonators enable frequency comb generation at GHz and THz repetition rates with minimal input power. Moreover, nanophotonic chips are compact (few millimeters) and can be manufactured at large scale.
Octave Photonics specializes in the design, simulation, fabrication, and packaging of nonlinear nanophotonic devices and can provide packaged devices customized for specific applications. Additionally, our team has years of experience with the application of nonlinear nanophotonics to solving real-world problems in metrology and spectroscopy and can provide complete solutions built around our nanophotonic devices.
Light propagating through nanophotonic waveguides often has an extremely small mode area. This fact makes it challenging to couple light on and off the chip with high efficiency, reliability, and repeatability.
Octave Photonics specializes in packaging integrated photonic chips into usable devices. In the simplest package, we precisely align specialty optical fibers to specifically designed photonic waveguides, bond the fibers in place, and package the assembly in a robust enclosure. However, more sophisticated packaging schemes are also available, including multiple inputs and outputs, temperature stabilization, and the interfacing of multiple nanophotonic assemblies.
PRODUCT
Packaged Supercontinuum Generation Waveguides
Supercontinuum generation allows a pulsed laser with narrow bandwidth to be broadened to many times its previous bandwidth. Broad bandwidth is critical for many applications, including spectroscopy and self-referencing of frequency combs. Nanophotonic waveguides allow supercontinuum with significantly lower pulse energies than nonlinear fibers and provides control over the shape of the output spectrum.
We offer fully connectorized nonlinear supercontinuum waveguides, providing simple plug-and-go usability. Our most popular version enables the efficient generation of 780 nm light from a 1560 nm mode-locked laser for low-power frequency comb stabilization. Pulse energies less than <100 pJ (at <200 fs duration) can be used.
Our packaged amorphous tantala nonlinear waveguides achieve excellent coupling efficiency and are mechanically rugged. This technology opens new doors in precision timekeeping, quantum science, biological imaging, and remote sensing. Packaged supercontinuum waveguides from Octave Photonic are currently in use numerous laboratories.
Options include:
Polarization-maintaining fibers
Collimated free-space output
Hermetic sealing
Active temperature stabilization
Multi-watt-level power handling
PRODUCT
Comb Offset Stabilization Module (COSMO)
The Octave Photonics Comb Offset Stabilization Module (COSMO) provides a compact and convenient solution for the f-2f self-referencing of a laser frequency comb. Additionally, the COSMO allows the carrier-envelope-offset (CEO) frequency to be detected with exceptionally low pulse energies, enabling lower power consumption or higher repetition rates.
The COSMO simplifies the f-2f self-referencing process. The COSMO connects to the laser with a fiber connector (FC/APC or similar) and provides an electrical output that can be connected to the comb stabilization electronics.
Key features:
Input wavelength: ~1560 nm
Input pulse energy: >200 pJ
Input: PM1550 fiber
Output: SMA connector
Dimensions: ~40x25x15 mm
CEO Signal-to-noise ratio: >35 dB
PRODUCT
Electro-Optic Frequency Combs
Cutting edge applications of femtosecond-laser frequency combs, such as astronomical spectrograph calibration and high-speed data transfer, require lasers with repetition rates of 10 GHz and above, far higher than the 100 MHz typical of femtosecond lasers. Fortunately, recent technological breakthroughs now allow a continuous wave (CW) laser to be modulated at 10+ GHz, providing a robust, flexible, and stable frequency comb at ultrahigh repetition rates.
In 2018, scientists now at Octave Photonics combined nonlinear waveguides with an electro-optic (EO) laser to make the first EO laser source that was both ultrashort and ultrastable, solidifying EO combs as a premier source of broadband, stable, femtosecond pulses at multi-GHz repetition rates.
Octave Photonics designs and builds custom EO frequency combs. Additionally, we can combine the EO comb with our supercontinuum waveguides to provide broadband spectra, providing an ideal source for astronomical spectrograph calibration.
Features:
Spectrum with evenly spaced optical frequencies.
Spectral coherence over large bandwidth.
Repetition rates between 5 and 30 GHz
Optical output power up to 5 Watts
Pulse durations as short as 20 fs
Fun fact: EO combs are currently being used to find Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars!
