European consortium bets on Mid-IR photonics for low-cost gas and liquid sensors
The consortium of eight European research institutes and companies will focus on developing novel, high-performance, cost-effective chemical sensors, based on mid-infrared photonic integrated circuits (MIR PICs). Silicon PICs, which integrate optical circuits onto millimeter-size silicon chips, create extremely robust miniature systems in which discrete components are replaced by on-chip equivalents. This makes them easier to use and reduces their cost dramatically, the researchers anticipate a cost reduction by at least a factor of 10.
To develop these chemical sensors, the consortium must overcome the significant challenge of implementing these capabilities in the important mid-infrared region (2-20 μm wavelength range), where many important chemical and biological species have strong absorption fingerprints.
This allows both the detection and concentration measurement of a wide range of gases, liquids and biomolecules, which is crucial for applications such as health monitoring and diagnosis, detection of biological compounds and monitoring of toxic gases.
Initially, REDFINCH will focus on three specific applications: namely process gas analysis in refineries, gas leak detection in petrochemical plants and pipelines, and protein analysis in liquids for the dairy industry.
“Despite the mid-infrared wavelength region’s importance for a wide range of applications, current state-of-the-art sensing systems in the MIR tend to be large and delicate. This significantly limits their spreading in real-world applications,” explains Jean-Guillaume Coutard, an instrumentation engineer at Leti, coordinator the project.
“By harnessing the power of photonic integrated circuits, using hybrid and monolithic integration of III-V diode and interband cascade and quantum cascade materials with silicon, the consortium will create high-performance, cost-effective sensors for a number of industries.”
In addition to Leti, whose expertise includes the design and manufacture of PICs on a 200mm pilot line and integrated photoacoustic cells on silicon, the consortium members and contributions include:
· Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland) – PIC design & fabrication, hybrid integration
· Université de Montpellier (France) – Laser growth on Si, photodetector growth
· Technische Universität Wien (Austria) – Liquid spectroscopy, assembly/test of sensors
· mirSense (France) – MIR sensor products, laser module integration
· Argotech a.s. (Czech Republic) Assembly/packaging of PICs
· Fraunhofer IPM (Germany) – Gas spectroscopy, instrument design/assembly
· Endress+Hauser (Germany) Process gas analysis and expertise, testing validation.
Leti – www.leti-cea.com
REDFINCH – www.redfinch.eu
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