Funding : NEWAVE

Project coordinator : Thierry Guillet, Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, Montpellier

Project goal : exploring new operation modes for micro- and nano-lasers for integrated photonics, based on polaritonic quantum fluids of light.

Partners :

• L2C, Montpellier
• CRHEA, Sophia Antipolis
• C2N, Saclay
• Institut Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand

ANR Collaborative Research Program (PRC) :

• Contract ANR-21-CE24-0019-01 within CE24 (Micro et nanotechnologies pour le traitement de l’information et la communication)

The foreseen microlasers are based on polaritonic waveguides (GaN), an “all-in-one” active medium that is very different from usual semiconducting active layers, thus revisiting in depth the laser mechanisms.

They provide a very strong gain, low absorption losses and a self-focusing non-linearity.

The challenge is to control the laser dynamics by patterning photonic crystal waveveguides in order to realise continuous-wave or pulsed laser sources (with an ultra-low energy per pulse), and then a topological laser including an intra-cavity optical isolator.

This project should open new mid-term perspectives for important applications in integrated photonics, topological photonics and photonic quantum simulators.