Universite de Bordeaux (UBx)

The University of Bordeaux (UBx) is a multidisciplinary, research-focused and international university which is ranked among the top French universities for the quality of its academic courses and research. In 2011, UBx was rewarded by the French government for its overall campus strategy for excellence and was one of only three French universities in 2016 to obtain confirmation of this Excellence program. Via this Excellence program (25M€/year), UBx develops innovative training, research and knowledge transfer programs in numerous fields of excellence and in partnership with other educational institutions in Bordeaux.  
UBx is a leading education and research organisation (#top200 in the 2017 Shanghai ranking and # 3 in France), and counts about 53 000 students (including 6.200 as international students) and 5.600 staff (including 4,000 as academic and research staff).  Its cutting-edge research activities are carried out in 74 research departments associated with major research bodies (CNRS, CEA, IOGS, INSERM and INRA). UBx offers high level of research with an international scope: 19 international research laboratories, 2 cross-border joint laboratories as well as one international joint research unit. 
The contribution by UBx to Flexiburst is concentrated in the Laboratoire de Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences (LP2N) under the leadership of Eric Cormier and Giorgio Santarelli. LP2N is a Joined Research Unit (JRU 5298) between Institut d’Optique Graduate School (IOGS), University of Bordeaux and CNRS. It has been created on January 1st 2011. It forms one of the elements of the Bordeaux site of the IOGS within the Institut d’Optique d’Aquitaine, where training, research and innovation coexist. Its research concentrates around complex systems integrating optics and computer science. LP2N, which gathers almost 80 people in 2018, is a young, dynamic structure already rewarded several times. It is involved in several large national and international projects. 
The group of Prof. Cormier has developed along the years a wide expertise covering high power fiber lasers, generation and amplification of ultrashort pulses from bulk lasers, few-cycle and midIR pulses from optical parametric amplification (OPCPA). In particular, the group had pioneered the development of chirped pulse amplifiers (CPA) based on rod-type fibers and achieved the first demonstration of high order harmonic generation in gaseous medium at MHz repetition rates. The group has also pioneered the development of high power (100 W) ultra-high brightness sources at 976 nm based on Yb-doped fiber opening the way to high brightness pumping of Yb materials. The later has led to the demonstration of record-breaking fs pulse durations (~20 fs) and average power from an Yb-doped solid-state oscillator. 
The group of Dr. Santarelli aims to explore new photonic systems with high metrological performances or novel functionalities, such as smart sensors or laser systems. His group has a long-standing experience in precise measurements, high-end opto-electronics and instrumentation frequency metrology in stable and agile laser systems. Since 2014 Giorgio Santarelli established at LP2N a partnership for high-power low-noise lasers, which involves close industry/academia collaboration on innovative research. In this framework a shared lab with an industrial leader in high power fibre laser development (Azur Light Systems in Pessac) has been created with the support of the ANR LabCom program and the Conseil Regional d’Aquitaine.
In 2015, the two groups have initiated a collaboration aiming at developing high-power high-energy GHz sources based on electro-optical frequency combs leading to the production of picosecond pulses at tunable GHz repetition rates of prime interest in the present proposal.  

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Collaborators:

Eric Cormier

Giorgio Santarelli