Researchers make strides in commercializing simplified dual-comb spectroscopy
Huang (left) and a graduate student discuss a project听in their lab.
It is sometimes said that science is about truth, while engineering is about compromise.
With one laser project in his lab in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Shu-Wei Huang and his team are working on a compromise in order to find new applications for a powerful new technology and make it easier to commercialize.
As they looked at the innovative and extremely precise dual-comb spectroscopy听being honed by mechanical engineering Associate Professor Greg Rieker and others, Huang鈥檚 team saw an opportunity to expand its applications.
鈥淲e've been trying to see whether we can compromise the performance a little bit to greatly simplify the architecture,鈥 Huang said. 鈥淭he application that we are especially interested in is the biomedical application because in biomedical applications, you don't need the same resolution you need to do something like methane detection.鈥
The result is , which won Bowen Li, a postdoctoral researcher in Huang鈥檚 lab, in 2021.
The key has been a redesigned laser cavity that allows for light to travel both clockwise and counterclockwise, which essentially makes two lasers out of one laser cavity. That, in turn, decreases the number of complex electronics needed to configure two lasers in dual-comb devices, Huang explained.
鈥淲e reduce the complexity in the laser design, and we have to compromise the precision a little bit, but it's still much better than the state of art tools used in biomedical applications,鈥 Huang said.
In the team鈥檚 , they introduced new techniques to reduce the CANDi laser鈥檚 relative timing jitter, further proving that the laser will be a good option for a host of applications. That work won PhD student Neeraj Prakash a best poster award at Optica鈥檚 2021 Laser Congress.
Huang said they鈥檝e been working with a startup company in Taiwan that is interested in using CANDi for terahertz imaging 鈥 often used in screening for security and drugs. A lab at Colorado State University is also experimenting with the laser for Raman spectroscopy, which has applications in pharmaceuticals and water-quality monitoring.
鈥淐ANDi is a new fiber laser architecture and right now, we are working on several projects to unveil its full potential for dual-comb applications,鈥 Huang said.