hexagonal micro-laser with integrated microsphere cavity: new monolithic structure for high-bandwidth, high-quality optical chaos (ikv bilaterale samenwerking met China) (FWOAL919)

The noise-like behaviour of chaos can be efficiently exploited, for instance to generate random numbers and cryptographic keys. Lasers can generate optical chaos easily if subject to perturbations such as feedback. Taking advantage of their intrinsic speed, chaotic lasers can be exploited for fast random bit generation, up to the Tbps. But all chaotic systems are not equivalent: different systems can have widely different features and thus exhibit different performances. In addition, the footprint and the bulkiness of the system are crucial points in practice. The ideal being, as always, to reach
top-level performances in the tiniest box possible. Today, the best performances– which for chaos means a broad and flat spectrum – are achieved using costly, complex and bulky systems, while on- chip devices – being constrained miniature copies of the bulkier setups – face stringent limitations. In this project, instead of mimicking bulky setups, we aim at removing the current roadblocks by coupling two cutting-edge fully-integrated components on the same chip. We will design a hexagonal micro laser coupled to a deformed microsphere cavity to obtain an ultra-compact high- performance chaotic laser. While the micro-laser will provide a fast response with a flat spectrum, the microsphere cavity will create a randomly distributed feedback. Combining these two pieces together will thus lead to high-performance chaos, with an extremely broad, but still flat, spectrum.

Keywords:micro-laser

Disciplines:Electronics not elsewhere classified