Ultrafast lasers on a chip: Progress towards making the femtosecond world mainstream

Ultrafast mode locked lasers have revolutionised many areas of science and industry since their inception, and continue to drive scientific research and select new industrial applications. They have to date however failed to penetrate into more mainstream applications despite a plethora of potential uses. The main reasons for this are the relatively high costs of suitable devices and the lack of small form factor platforms integrated with other functionality. This is of course exactly the domain of planar integrated devices, which in electronic form have wrought massive changes in society over the last 30 years. The question is then raised of whether suitable fully chip based ultrafast lasers are possible with the necessary performance levels for a broad range of applications? (author)