Bay Photonics leads industrial initiative to develop robust Quantum Technology laser sources

Bay Photonics leads industrial initiative to develop robust Quantum Technology laser sources

Bay Photonics recently joined forces with the NPL in the Innovate UK funded quantum technologies project, Q-Pods.
Q-Pods is a dedicated mechanically and thermally stable optoelectronics module to drive magneto-optical traps (MOT) used in several UK Quantum projects. The Q-Pods project will considerably reduce the SWAP-C by holistically integrating all the essential components into a single ruggedised package.

Existing systems are based on laboratory-grade components (image above right); manual alignment of optical components on optical tables leads to instability of the overall system and reduction in performance due to continual alignment drift. This leads to difficulties in system-level production of atom trap-based quantum products.

In this project, Bay Photonics will develop Q-Pods (image above left) in collaboration with NPL and a user advisory board (UAB) comprising several end-users and system integrators. Several UAB members are developing/have systems that include various configurations of MOT chambers and have expressed the need for Q-Pods to enhance their product offerings.

Compared with existing systems, Q-Pods offers significant reduction in optical alignment drift (vs. manual tuning X-Y stages/mounts), fewer components (no alignment optics required), considerable improvement in mechanical and thermal stability, much smaller form factor and scalable production.

Q-Pods will enable Bay Photonics to establish themselves as key suppliers to the UAB and wider cold-atom community. Augmented designs will seek exploit opportunities in ion-trapping applications (for e.g. Quantum Computers), highspeed telecoms and LIDAR will also be explored in the project.

About Bay Photonics – Bay Photonics have been providing photonic packaging solutions since 2007 and have experience in hermetic packaging of photonic components such as laser die, detectors, and PICS. Bay are also experts in development and building small, robustly packaged micro-optic and optical fiber based photonic modules and lasers. Bay Photonics are located within the Electronics & Photonics Innovation Centre (EPIC), Paignton, Devon