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Kasper Van Gasse

Kasper Van Gasse

University of Ghent, Belgium

On-chip Laser Integration

Introduction to On-Chip Laser Integration:

The integration of laser sources on photonic integrated circuits has been under development for decades. In this talk, we will take an overview of the current state of the art and will put current challenges into perspective.

Titanium-Sapphire Lasers on Chip:

Titanium-sapphire lasers have been the workhorse for both practical and scientific applications since their invention in 1982. However, due to their size, cost, and weight, they have mainly been limited to optical research institutions, and their potential has not been applicable to real-world applications. In recent work, we have realized the photonic integration of high-performance titanium-sapphire lasers on a photonic chip, enabling for the first time the widespread adoption of titanium-sapphire lasers’ unique capabilities.

About the Speaker

Kasper Van Gasse received a PhD in the Photonics Research Group of Ghent University and imec, in 2019 and a MSc in Engineering Physics at Ghent University in 2014. For his PhD work on Photonic Integrated Circuits for 5G networks, he received the Nokia Bell Scientific Award 2020, awarded by Nokia Bell Labs and the FWO. In 2019, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the FWO and developed integrated mode-locked lasers at Ghent University and imec. At the end of 2019, he also joined the Laser Spectroscopy Division of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. Here, he worked together with Theodor Haensch and Nathalie Picque to develop dual-comb systems based on integrated mode-locked lasers. Afterwards, he obtained a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation.

In the framework of the latter fellowship, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab headed by Jelena Vučković at Stanford University. At Stanford University, he developed the first thin-film monocrystalline titanium-sapphire nanophotonic laser platform. He is now an Associate Professor at Ghent University and Photonics Research Group of Ghent University and imec. Here, his goal is to further develop chip-scale solid-state lasers for metrology and quantum systems in the framework of the ERC StG LASIQ.

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