Drake Lab
Researchers in the Drake Microcomb Lab explore the intersection of experimental nonlinear optics and integrated photonics, and we specialize in Kerr-microresonator optical frequency combs.
Optical frequency combs, whose invention at the turn of the 21st century led to the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics, have revolutionized the fields of precision measurement and spectroscopy. Today, optical frequency combs are used to identify trace amounts of gas (e.g. biomarkers in medical diagnostics and methane leaks over oil fields), in stellar spectroscopy to detect exoplanets, and in conjunction with atomic clocks and other frequency standards to observe and measure the fundamental constants of nature.
Until recently, building and operating an optical frequency comb was a large and expensive endeavor, requiring a specialized optics laboratory, complex equipment, and optics experts to keep the comb operational. However, a new type of comb, the Kerr-microresonator optical frequency comb, is changing that. Kerr-microcombs are formed in microscopic ring-shaped waveguides printed on silicon chips, and these photonic rings can be mass-produced using tools and techniques developed for semiconductors and microelectronics.
News Highlights
1 September 2025: Congrats to CHTM's NQVL team on our project's advancement and growth! UNM and NMSU welcome our new partners from University of Virginia and University of Maryland and look forward to a fruitful collaboration.
6 May 2025: Gabriel Colación presents "Microcombs in Si3N4 Microresonators Fabricated via Metal Lift-off: Demonstration of Octave Bandwidth, Dual Dispersive Waves, and Solitons" at the 2025 Optica Nonlinear Optics conference in Honolulu, HI.
15 May 2025: The Drake Lab welcomes new RA Yinjuan Zhai from the UNM Optical Science and engineering PhD program!
4 - 9 May 2025: The Drake Lab goes to CLEO 2025! Special congratulations to Brandon Stone and Lala Rukh for their excellent presentations.
Dr. Drake's Awards and Honors
2022 Excellence in Teaching Award for the 2021-2022 Academic Year
2020 Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award/2-Photon Optical Clock Collaboration, The Optical Society
2020 Women in STEM Award, University of New Mexico
2016 NRC-NAS Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO
Lala, Ameen, and Brandon etch a microcomb in a pumpkin. (Typically, we etch our microresonators in thin films of silicon nitride.)
