With this Phase II Nanotera.ch MIXSEL proposal, we want to exploit our scientific leadership and consolidate our research efforts for real application demonstrations. For this purpose, we identified areas with commercial potential available in Switzerland and focussed our consortium with partners targeting applications in metrology and bio-medicine. We will continue to improve the VECSEL and MIXSEL sources towards prototype demonstrators for end-user demonstration in biomedical imaging, compact efficient white light generation for general high brightness illumination and frequency metrology applications. End-user demonstration will take place with our newly added university and industrial partners.

The high potential in metrology will be investigated and exploited by the University of Neuchatel, and two new partners, the Federal Office of Metrology (METAS) and the company ABB (financed by their own contribution). Biomedical imaging will be exploited together with the light microscopy and screening center (LMSC) at ETH Zurich and applications in high brightness illumination by Volpi AG. RUAG will be an end-user for applications in space missions. Industrial transfer of this technology is planned with the Swiss company Time-Bandwidth Products AG (who previously secured IP for ultrafast optically pumped VECSELs and MIXSELs) and with Oclaro when larger scale production can be started.
Therefore the Phase II of the MIXSEL project will consolidate and continue with the most promising laser technology to achieve real application demonstrations. We will concentrate on optically pumped VECSELs and MIXSELs at a center wavelength of 950 nm to 980 nm where we achieved the best results. We will not focus on a specific wavelength demonstration because this can be done at a later stage. The wavelength range proposed here is typically used for bio-medical imaging and white light generation works even better at this shorter wavelength compared to 1.5 µm. During the initial MIXSEL project it also has become clear that electrically pumped VECSELs/MIXSELs will be limited in output power because of the design trade-offs between modelocking and power scaling. A key milestone demonstration of optically pumped MIXSELs and SESAM modelocked VECSELs is shorter femtosecond pulses in the range of 100 fs to 300 fs with more than 1 W average output power. We will develop prototype demonstrators for the target applications mentioned above.