Vexlum and Menlo Systems are collaborating on a modular photonics platform intended to make optical atomic clocks easier to build, stabilise, and run outside specialist laboratory environments. The companies are combining Vexlum’s semiconductor laser technology with Menlo’s precision metrology hardware through the EUROSTARS-backed VEQTOR project, with the aim of reducing one of the biggest practical barriers in optical clock development: the laser stack itself.
That barrier is substantial. Optical clocks may already outperform microwave caesium standards by more than two orders of magnitude, but their real-world use is still constrained by the sheer complexity of the supporting photonics. Multi-wavelength laser systems are often assembled from several suppliers, require painstaking stabilisation, and remain difficult to package for continuous operation. For researchers trying to move beyond one-off laboratory rigs, the integration burden can become the project.
The collaboration is focused on that point of failure. Menlo brings the frequency control, metrology, and clock-system expertise, while Vexlum contributes a VECSEL-based laser platform designed for compactness, narrow linewidths, tailored wavelengths, and lower size, weight, power, and cost. In practice, the target is a standardised light source that can provide the multiple colours needed to cool, trap, initialise, and interrogate neutral strontium-87 atoms without forcing each clock builder into a fresh integration exercise.
Dr. Felix Balling, Project Lead at Menlo Systems, said: “The laser systems these clocks rely on are often sourced from several suppliers, are complex systems on their own, and typically require at least some level of hands-on operation. This, in turn, makes their system integration, stabilization, and 24/7 operation extremely difficult.”
If the pair can deliver what they describe, the industrial implications stretch well beyond national timing labs. Optical clocks are being developed for GPS-independent navigation, secure and highly accurate time transfer, geodesy, and precision sensing, with Europe particularly focused on transportable and field-deployable systems. Menlo’s own VEQTOR programme description points to a single-rack, multi-wavelength laser platform as a missing link for scalable quantum technology applications based on cold atoms and trapped ions.
That is why this announcement sits in a larger trend rather than as a standalone component story. The bottleneck in quantum technology is increasingly less about proving that precision is possible and more about building supply chains that can deliver that precision repeatably, with serviceability, uptime, and manageable cost. Laser miniaturisation is central to that shift, and Vexlum has already been positioning its newer VXL platform around 24/7 operation and reduced SWaP-C.
Both companies are using next week’s EFTF 2026 event in Noordwijk, running from April 20 to 23, to discuss the collaboration in public. Menlo will exhibit at stand 11, and Vexlum at stand 13, which should give the industry an early read on how close this optical-clock supply chain is getting to a real product architecture.
