Quantum technologies are set to transform the way we measure the world around us, how we navigate and communicate, and how we process vast amounts of data. At the core of many quantum technology systems currently trapped in laboratories around the world are lasers with extremely stringent requirements on their wavelength, stability and linewidth. Current commercially available lasers are bulky, expensive and struggle to meet these requirements without significant development effort from the user. To address these challenges, the TuNaFISH project will develop a versatile, compact, narrow-linewidth laser module capable of meeting the requirements for any laser that will be used in a commercial atom interferometer. In this project the consortium will combine advanced spectroscopy and laser locking schemes with mature packaging capability. This innovative approach will allow us to produce a laser module that is small (approximately 60x40x20 mm) and simple to use by system integrators intending to commercialise quantum technologies based on cold atom interferometry, while providing highly tuneable narrow-linewidth laser light without the need for any bulky third party hardware.

We propose to develop an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for the prediction of polymer composite material properties of a novel tooling board system. The ANN should enable us to identify target formulations and process conditions thereby minimising the amount of experimentation and development required to tailor our product to customer’s requirements. The work will be conducted on data sets of materials properties already held within Base Materials and the performance of the ANN will be demonstrated on blind data sets.

The silicon electronics industry has two major challenges in the development of new products: demand for increasing levels of processing power on a single chip and the amount of energy required to run these chips. The two challenges are linked, since the more components and communications links that are integrated into the chip, the higher the associated energy usage. While the energy consumption of a single chip is relatively low, this rapidly scales to environmental levels when considering the huge volume of units produced each year is in the order of 10's of billions. Already, large scale data-centres consume around 1% of global electricity demand, so any efficiency gains in the energy consumption of integrated chips will have significant effects. As device dimensions reach fundamental physical limits, chip designers are developing new architectures in order to continue to deliver growth in chip performance. These designs require high bandwidth communications across millimetre length scales, currently realised as simple electronic tracks. By replacing these tracks with optical interconnects, system power consumption can be reduced and communications bandwidth improved. The fundamental challenge for any alternative technology is that it must be compatible with current electronics manufacturing, where vast investments have been made over the last decades. This project will develop an optical interconnect layer that has a link power consumption lower than equivalent electronic lines. The optical layer will be realised as a thin film chip that can be interposed between the silicon device and its packaging, meaning that this process is zero-change with respect to the manufacture of the electronic chips. Recent advances pioneered at the Universities of Strathclyde and Sheffield in ultra-high precision micro-assembly of opto-electronic membrane systems will enable a two stage process that is designed to be compatible with production at scale. Firstly, membrane optical sources, waveguides and detectors will be assembled on a glass chip that incorporates electrical vias. This interposer with integrated optical interconnects will be integrated between the electronic chip and its packaging using micro-assembly processes. The project is supported by industrial partners Alter Technologies and Fraunhofer UK who will provide resources and expertise in opto-electronic packaging and optical systems engineering. This will ensure new process developments with industrial standards and design rules. The proposal aligns with EPSRC's ICT and Manufacturing the Future themes and the Photonics for Future Systems priority, addressing specific portfolio areas such as Manufacturing Technologies, Optical Communications, Optical Devices & Subsystems, Optoelectronic Devices & Circuits, Components & Systems. By the end of the project we will have demonstrated an optical transmission link with energy consumption lower than an equivalent electronic line. This link will be integrated with a commercially available silicon transceiver chip to demonstrate feasibility of developing this technology as a back-end process in the silicon electronics industry.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Project Summary