EPFL Shrinks 147-Femtosecond Laser Onto Chip, Matching Tabletop Systems
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · Jun 4
EPFL Shrinks 147-Femtosecond Laser Onto Chip, Matching Tabletop Systems
3 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · Jun 4
Summary
EPFL researchers built the first integrated ultrafast laser that matches tabletop femtosecond systems, generating 1.05-nanojoule pulses from a photonic chip roughly the size of a match head.
The result comes from a Mamyshev oscillator design on erbium-doped silicon nitride, where two optical filters and a nonlinear waveguide sustain strong pulses while suppressing weaker light.
A 42-centimeter laser cavity can be folded onto the chip, and wafer-scale fabrication could produce more than 1,000 cavities at once, sharply cutting size and cost versus fiber-based lab lasers.
Kilowatt-level peak powers could extend ultrafast lasers beyond laboratories into portable sensing, spectroscopy, medical diagnostics and eventually compact optical atomic clocks for communications and navigation.
This new chip-laser is 100 times more powerful. Are the days of traditional, room-sized lasers now numbered?
This breakthrough enables powerful new sensors. Which industry, from medicine to AI, will be transformed by it first?
A tabletop laser now fits on a match head. What’s the biggest hurdle to putting this power in our pockets?
The Nanojoule Leap: Chip-Scale Ultrafast Lasers Deliver 100x Pulse Energy Breakthrough (2026)
Overview
In June 2026, researchers achieved a major breakthrough by creating a chip-scale, integrated mode-locked laser that delivers nanojoule-level pulse energies at a high repetition rate of 176 MHz. This innovation, built on the combination of Mamyshev oscillator architecture and erbium-ion-implanted silicon nitride waveguides, enables efficient generation and manipulation of ultrashort light pulses—down to 147 femtoseconds—within a compact footprint. The result is a 'nanojoule leap,' offering about 100 times more pulse energy than previous photonic integrated circuit systems and, in some ways, even surpassing conventional fiber-based ultrafast lasers.