Startup Vector Photonics touts potential of Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers

Nov. 5, 2020
“PCSELs are low cost, robust, have a broad wavelength range and high power. This combination of key characteristics gives them a huge advantage over most of the laser technologies used today,” according to Vector Photonics CEO Neil Martin.

Vector Photonics, a startup spun out of the University of Glasgow earlier this year, has announced its intention to commercialize Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers (PCSELs). The company first plans to apply PCSELs to the hyperscale data center markets, with its eyes on LiDAR, mobile consumer, biometric, and sensing applications in the future.

According to the company’s website, PCSELs feature a 2D grating structure (the “photonic crystal”) that scatters light linearly and orthogonally. Thus, the feedback is in-plane and light emission is out of plane and emanates from the laser’s top surface, as do VCSELs. This combination is unique to PCSELs, the company states, and leads to significant advantages in data rate, wavelength, and power performance. They also can be produced in a manner similar to edge-emitting lasers (EELs).

“PCSELs are low cost, robust, have a broad wavelength range and high power. This combination of key characteristics gives them a huge advantage over most of the laser technologies used today,” according to Vector Photonics CEO Neil Martin. “This includes VCSELs, which are robust, but compromise wavelength range and power, and EELs [edge-emitting lasers], which have broad wavelength range, but are expensive to make and are fragile to handle.”

In addition to Martin, key executives include Dr. Richard Taylor, CTO and lead inventor; Dr. David Childs, director of product development and co-inventor; Prof. Richard Hogg, chair of the Scientific Advisory Board and co-inventor; and Euan Livingston, marketing director. Vector Photonics received an undisclosed amount of funding from The Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) Programme in 2018 as well as £70,000 of funding from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and £30,000 from a Glasgow company to support that award in 2019. The company recently was added to Seraphim Capital’s “Seraphim Space Camp” as a “SpaceTech” company the organization plans to assist in Vector Photonics’ growth and development.

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