Public Funding for Chromacity Limited

This 3-way partnership combines academic expertise in broadly tuneable laser technology with advanced industrial laser engineering approaches to enable the development of uniquely versatile multiphoton microscopy systems. Specifically, the project will develop innovative approaches to achieving tuneable ultrafast light sources for the life-sciences imaging market which offer superior wavelength coverage, size, ease of use and lower cost of ownership that existing technology. A novel multiphoton microscopy system able to work with multiple simultaneous laser lines and deeper into the infrared than is currently possible will be developed and tested with the new laser system to create an integrated, UK based solution for this market.

CHROMACITY Ltd., a world leader in development of infra-red lasers, Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) will work together to develop and test new instrument technology for real-time in-the-field measurement of common greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants for the quantification of concentrations and area source emissions including in, but not limited to, agriculture, agroforestry, forestry, landfill sites, anaerobic digestion plants, and wastewater treatment. The aim is to provide a step change in capability, addressing limitations of current measurement solutions by taking the technology developed by CHROMACITY from TRL4 to TRL7 with the help of project partners. The proposed new Fourier-transform infra-red instrument works by analysing absorption of infra-red light over the light source to reflector path. Absorption is dependent on the concentration of gas under analysis, allowing gas concentrations in the path to be measured. This technique is proven but limited by the type of infra-red radiation source used for the analysis. Current commercial offerings either use non-coherent light sources with poor beam quality, which forces the use of large high-cost retroreflectors to define the measurement path, or narrow-linewidth lasers with limited tuning range, which mean many instruments are required to measure multiple pollutants. CHROMACITY's key advancement derives from the use of its patented state-of-the-art broad bandwidth, tuneable infra-red pulsed laser source. This advanced laser technology has a high quality, high brightness beam, which enables the system to cover an extremely wide measurement area, with only small low-cost reflectors. It is also able to scan a wide range of wavelengths, covering the main areas of interest where the target gases absorb light. The output of the project will be a system capable of the following: * Simultaneous detection of multiple pollutant gases. * Analysis of multiple pollutant gases in near real-time (seconds), thus enhancing the ability to understand the immediate relationship between pollutants. * Detection of pollutants in a 'stand-off' configuration, remote from the pollution source, reducing the possibility of instrument contamination, and reducing setup time. * Creation of a quasi-3D map of pollutants over a wide area (\>100 m-by-\>100 m field or interior space) The solution will be capable of being deployed at scale both in the UK and internationally and will find a use in agricultural and industrial settings, helping scientists, engineers, permitters and end-users develop mitigation solutions and deliver on Net Zero and pollutant emission targets.

"The UK government has invested nearly £300M in the last three years to stimulate the translation of quantum mechanics, one of the most successful scientific theories of all times, to new quantum technologies for the benefit of its citizens. Quantum-enhanced optics also enables new levels of sensitivity in the measurement of minute changes in the structure of the space, such as those induced by gravitational waves. At the core of all these optically-enabled quantum-based technologies are entangled photons: particles of light sharing a unique state even when spatially separated, which does not have a counterpart in the classical world. Here we propose to develop a source of entangled photons using fibre laser based technology. Fibre-based lasers are now the reference tools for low-noise ultrashort pulse metrology and are rapidly becoming the workhorse of companies and research centres working with ultrashort laser pulses."

Random numbers are essential for creating the cryptographic keys that ensure our personal information is secure online. Generating truly random numbers in software alone is impossible, since computers use a completely predictable algorithm for this purpose. Only hardware random number generators can produce true random numbers, and even these are limited by aging effects in classical noise sources. To be truly random one needs a quantum random number generator (RNG), and such devices will be integral to the future of cryptography, forming the basis of secure communications and data processing. Due to their respective technological approaches the clock speeds of commercially available quantum RNGs are limited to few-hundred Mbit/s data streams, a bottleneck that is incompatible with future telecommunications demands. In this project we will demonstrate a route to 100s-of-Gb/s quantum RNG based on novel laser technology. Excitingly, our proposed approach is highly scalable, enabling the performance provided by the system to keep pace with the demand for high-bit-rate random numbers continues to increase.

Chromacity Ltd. is a ultrafast laser manufacturer servicing the scientific and industrial laser market. In this feasibility study the company will investigate a new flexible ps seed laser technology which offers a promising route to an OEM module suitable for direct integration into an existing high-average-power amplifier system.