There's Plenty of Light-on-a-Chip
State-of-the-Art facilities at Light-on-a-Chip laboratory include equipment for in-line measurements and characterization of guided wave devices for the development of light-based technologies on a chip. The Light-on-a-Chip laboratory is dedicated to exploring, designing, fabrication and optical measurements of integrated nanophotonic and plasmonic systems for emerging applications such as sensing, quantum computing, optics telecommunication and more.
The lab includes all the building blocks for the fiber optics systems: vibration control tables and platforms, optomechanical components, motion control stages, optical elements, fiber cables and components, light sources and light analysis meters and detectors. Our dry lab cleanroom has class 100,000.
The simulations in Light-on-a-Chip group are running on 1) Dual CPU Intel Xeon E5-1650 6 Cores 3.5 GHz+ 64 GB DDR4 2133 MHz and on 2) AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X 12 Cores 3.5 GHz + 128 GB DDR4 2666 MHz. The design of devices at Light-on-a-Chip group and simulation work is carried by Maxwell solvers based on: finite element method (FEM) of COMSOL 5.2a Multiphysics with Matlab module, finite difference time domain (FDTD) codes and Mode Solutions of Lumerical under powerful server enviroment.
VIS-SWIR High Sensitivity Imaging
We are imging the mode profiles and evaluating the propagation losses of our devices using high sensitivity digital VIS-SWIR camera: Ninox-640. It has a 640 x 512 InGaAs sensor from SCD which enables high sensitivity imaging from 0.4µm to 1.7µm. The 15µm x 15µm pixel pitch enables highest resolution VIS-SWIR image and with less than 50 electrons readout noise so the OWL 640 enables the highest VIS-SWIR detection limit. It has TEC and liquid cooling to -20°C. The Ninox 640 reduces dark current to ~1,500e/p/s, allowing longer exposures.
World-Class Optical Performance System
We are equipped with World-Class Optical Performance Telecom spectrum analyzer system, designed to measure and display the distribution of power of an optical source over 600 to 1700 nm wavelength span: Yokogawa 6370D. It allows for high wavelength accuracy: ±0.01nm and high wavelength resolution: 0.02nm. Wide dynamic range: 78dB type. and wide level range: +20 to -90dBm, fast measurement: 0.2 sec. (100nm span). Compatible with single-mode and multimode fibers of FC/PC and AC connectors.
Ocean HDX Spectrometers
Ocean HDX spectrometer uses a robust optical bench design, optimized components and precision engineering to maximize optical resolution, increase throughput, reduce stray light and maintain thermal stability for integrated, industrial and research applications with a wavelength range of 200-1100 nm.
Supercontinuum Light Source
SuperK Extreme lasers are a series of white light lasers (WLL) systems that can generate a pulsed supercontinuum as a class 4 laser source. Using a 78 Mhz seed laser, wavelength range from 400 to 2400 nanometers (typical) are emitted in a single spatially coherent beam with a pulse rate that is customizable according to application requirements.
Tunable High Contrast Single Line Filter
The LLTF Contrast is a continuously tunable high resolution bandpass filter that effectively converts a supercontinuum source into a widely tunable picoseconds laser. The filter transmits, with high efficiency, a single laser line while blocking unwanted lines with excellent out-of-band suppression and while maintaining the intrinsic single-mode beam quality of the supercontinuum laser enabling a wide range of applications over the whole superconinuum spectrum.
Fiber-Coupled Laser System
Our Qioptiq iFLEX-iRIS™ solid state laser operates at wavelength of 637 nm with output power of 65 mW. It offers high-performance stability with low amplitude noise in a miniaturized package. In our lab, it is used for integration into instruments that demand high performance yet need to retain a small form factor. The lasers are mode-hop free and wavelength stabilized as a result of active temperature control.
​
Stabilized Fiber-Coupled Tungsten Light Source
Thorlabs' Stabilized Light Sources provide a constant-intensity blackbody radiation spectrum from 360 to 2600 nm. An internal feedback system is employed to achieve a highly stable power output. The superior performance of Thorlabs' stabilized light sources makes them ideal for our experiments that require high accuracy and stability, such as transmittance and reflectance measurements.
​
Chameleon Ultra II
Widely tunable (680 to 1080 nm), high power, hands-free femtosecond laser for multiphoton imaging, ultrafast spectroscopy, and non-linear materials studies.
Eyepiece-less Stereo Inspection Microscope
We are using a unique eyepiece-less stereo inspection microscope, Lynx, for intricate tasks requiring high-resolution stereo viewing. Its patented ergonomic design brings unrivaled levels of comfort and reduced operator fatigue, leading to an increase in quality and productivity. 7x - 40x magnification (120x max.). Superior ergonomics improves accuracy and reduces errors. Patented stereo optics provide amazing 3D imaging. It can be controlled manually or by PC.
Zeiss Stemi SV6 Stereo Microscope
Compact three port stereo microscope with x80 zoom for inspection, alignment and imaging. It includes a Cmount adjustment for a camera.
Fiber core alignment fusion splicer
The Fujikura 70S is a fully robust, core alignment fusion splicer, providing consistent, low loss, splice performance. It includes automated and programmable wind protector, 9-second automated tube heater. The splicer is fully robust for shock, dust and moisture having a Li-Ion battery with 200 splices/shrinks per charge and allows for 5 mm cleave length for splice on the connector or small package needs.
Lab oven for PDMS softlithography
The universally applicable lab oven U30 is a classic appliance for temperature control in science, research and material tests in industry.
The oven allows baking multiple PDMS microfludics molds at high efficiency and accuracy.
Wet Bench
A Wet Bench in our lab is used for all the chemical handling. We explore light-molecule interaction on waveguides or microfibers using our optical set-ups inside a safe (in terms of chemical vapor enviroment) wet bench.
​
ID Qube NIR Gated
The ID Qube modules are available in free-space or fibre-coupled (MMF62.5) versions compatible with both SMF and MMF62.5 fibre. They offer the possibility to receive external pulses for fast and slow gating operations depending on the model.
The ID Qube NIR Gated module is optimised for fast-gated (up to 100 MHz) operations at telecom wavelengths, specially suited for quantum communication protocol.
​
MultiView 2000
The MultiView 2000 series equipment in our lab is an advanced single probe scanning probe microscope enabling a variety of modes of AFM/SPM/NSOM imaging of Nanonics. It includes scanning probe microscopy while allowing for near-field and far-field optical NSOM/AFM Raman/TERS imaging without perturbation. Two working regimes are possible: both tip and sample scanning. This versatility is important for different operation modes where the user can now choose whether the sample or tip is static.
​
Moku:Go
Moku:Go combines a compact hardware design with intuitive software to provide test essentials and tools for complex applications — all in a single device, From audio and power electronics to analog and digital design.
Fabrication
We fabricate our samples in house at the NanoFab cleanroom of Ben-Gurion university. NanoFab is equipped with mask aligner, photolithography, solvent and acid wet benches, e-gun evaporator and LPCVD system. In addition, the unit for nanofabrication at the Ben-Gurion university Nanocenter, equipped with e-beam lithography and focused ion beam (FIB) milling, metal deposition instruments, RIE/ICP, PECVD, packaging tools, profiler, microscopes, thickness measuring instrument, probe station, scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and more.
