Cheaper and better lasers can open for new technology
New laser technology can help improve self-driving cars and fibre-optic internet, among other things.
The short version
- Researchers at NTNU and their partners in Switzerland have developed a new type of laser that is fast, precise, powerful, affordable, and easy to use.
- The new laser can be used in self-driving cars and to detect toxic gases, such as hydrogen cyanide, with high precision.
- The laser is made using existing chip technology, which makes it inexpensive to mass-produce and easy to integrate into various products.
- The research has been published in Nature Photonics and is supported through a European research project called ELLIPTIC.
This summary was created with the help of artificial intelligence and has been reviewed by a member of the editorial team.
Laser technology is used in many areas, where precise measurements are required and in communication. This means that they are important for everything from self-driving cars to the fibre optic internet and for detecting gases in the air.
Now, a research group has come up with a new type of laser that solves several problems associated with current-day lasers. The group is led by Associate Professor Johann Riemensberger at NTNU’s Department of Electronic Systems.
“Our results can give us a new type of laser that is both fast, relatively cheap, powerful and easy to use,” says Riemensberger.
A new article about the findings has now been published in Nature Photonics.
The work is a collaboration between NTNU and the Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Luxtelligence SA.
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Self-driving cars and air quality detectors
Conventional precision lasers can be large, expensive, and difficult to adjust.
“Our new laser solves several of these problems,” says Riemensberger.
Johann Riemensberger. Photo: NTNU
This means that this laser could be used in self-driving cars, for example. These cars use an optical remote sensing technique called Lidar to detect and judge the distance to objects in their surroundings.
The technique measures time differences or changes in the wave phase between the light emitted from the laser and what is reflected back. This laser measures with high precision, around four centimeters.
The researchers also got good results when they used the laser to detect hydrogen cyanide gas in the air. This is a chemical compound that we often call “hydrocyanic acid”. It is highly toxic in small doses, so it can be important to detect it quickly.
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Advanced materials, microscopic circuits
The researchers created the new laser with advanced materials and microscopic light circuits.
The laser emits a powerful and stable beam of light. Among the other advantages offered by the laser is that users can easily adjust the frequency quickly and smoothly, without sudden jumps.
“You can also easily control it with just one control instead of many,” Riemensberger points out.
The laser is built using chip technology that is already available. This makes it possible to mass-produce it cheaply.
“Our findings make it possible to create small, inexpensive and user-friendly measuring instruments and communication tools with high performance,” Riemensberger said.
The work was a collaboration between EPFL (experiments), Luxtelligence SA (chip production) and NTNU (design and simulations). It started when Riemensberger was still a postdoctoral fellow at EPFL. The collaboration continues through an EIC Pathfinder OPEN scholarship called ELLIPTIC.
Reference: Siddharth, A., Bianconi, S., Wang, R.N., Qiu, Z., Voloshin, A.S., Bereyhi, M.J., Riemensberger, J. and Kippenberg, T.J., Ultrafast tunable photonic-integrated extended-DBR Pockels laser. Nature Photonics. 05 June 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01687
