The Swiss company Luxtelligence S.A. from Lausanne has entered the exclusive club of the most innovative suppliers of the European Space Agency (ESA) after receiving the prestigious ESA Innovation Award at the Space Tech Expo Europe 2025 fair in Bremen on November 20, 2025. It is a recognition that emphasizes how important it is for the European space industry to develop new, advanced photonic chips capable of responding to the explosion of data traffic – from quantum computers to satellite communication systems.

The award is part of ESA's broader supplier evaluation program, within which the Agency annually awards companies that raise the bar in terms of quality, reliability, and innovation. Along with Luxtelligence, which accepted the award for innovation, the companies OHB from Germany and Huld from Finland were also highlighted this year, by which ESA sends a clear message that without top-tier industrial partners, there is no secure and competitive Europe in space.

What the ESA Innovation Award Represents

The ESA Innovation Award is part of a system of awards that the Agency grants to suppliers based on multi-year cooperation, results in projects, and contributions to the entire European space community. Within this system, among others, awards for excellence (Excellence Award) and innovation (Innovation Award) are granted. While the excellence award emphasizes consistent quality of deliveries and management of large programs, the innovation award focuses on companies that develop technologies that can change the rules of the game.

This year's ceremony took place at the ESA stand at the Space Tech Expo Europe 2025 fair in Bremen, one of the key European events dedicated to the space industry and accompanying technologies. It was precisely in this environment that Luxtelligence was highlighted as an example of how long-term fundamental research can be turned into concrete products ready for the market – specifically in the field of integrated photonics, which is today one of the strategic pillars of advanced communication systems.

The award was presented on behalf of ESA by Britta Schade, Head of the Product Assurance and Safety Department, who emphasized that the Innovation Award is not granted only for individual success, but for a holistic approach to innovations. In the case of Luxtelligence, this means the systematic removal of key obstacles that have for years hindered the wider application of advanced photonic circuits in space missions – primarily problems with tuning (tunability), voltage and power threshold values, and requirements for industrial production.

Luxtelligence: from EPFL to the first European platform of this kind

Luxtelligence S.A. emerged from the research environment of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the leading European institutions in the field of photonics and quantum technologies. The team gathered around the laboratory for integrated photonics worked for years on how to translate thin-film ferroelectric materials – primarily lithium niobate (LiNbO₃) and lithium tantalate (LiTaO₃) – into optoelectronic chips ready for more massive production.

Unlike classic silicon photonic platforms, ferroelectric thin films enable extremely fast light modulation with lower losses and lower driving voltages. Such a combination of properties is ideal for the needs of data centers, next-generation telecommunication networks, quantum communications, but also for demanding space applications where every watt of power and every gram of mass plays a crucial role.

Luxtelligence is the first European company to commercially offer optoelectronic photonic integrated circuits based on thin-film ferroelectric materials and aims to surpass the existing standard of silicon photonics. The company positions itself as a specialized supplier of chips made of thin-film lithium niobate and lithium tantalate, with a focus on very wide bandwidth, low losses, and stability in demanding operating conditions.

Although similar research and pilot productions in the field of advanced photonic chips are being conducted in the United States of America and China, Luxtelligence is among the first in Europe to turn this technology into mature products intended for industrial users. In doing so, it relies on a strong multidisciplinary team in which experts in photonics, electronics, quantum technologies, materials, and industrial engineering participate.

Why optical communications are a strategic issue

Optical communication, whether via optical fibers or free space, has become a key infrastructure for modern digital society. As the demand for data transmission grows – driven by the expansion of 5G and future 6G networks, cloud services, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing – so does the pressure on existing telecommunication and data networks.

In terrestrial communications, the transition from copper lines to optical fibers has already enabled a leap in capacity, but all these networks in the background need compact, energy-efficient, and scalable optoelectronic chips that convert a light signal into an electrical one and vice versa. Chip-based optoelectronics, such as that developed by Luxtelligence, is the heart of such systems: modulators, amplifiers, and other photonic blocks that determine how much data we can transmit per single channel and with what energy consumption.

When space applications are added to this – satellite broadband networks, optical links between satellites, satellite-to-ground communication, and future quantum communication networks – it becomes clear why ESA considers optical communications a strategic area. Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication, i.e., the transmission of a light beam through the atmosphere or vacuum, enables high transmission speeds without the need for heavy and complex radio-frequency antennas.

The technology developed by Luxtelligence directly targets precisely such scenarios. Their chips could become the core of future optical terminals for satellites, ground stations, and inter-satellite links, where it is important to achieve maximum speeds with minimum energy consumption, high resistance to radiation, and reliable operation over years in orbit.

Solving key bottlenecks in integrated photonics

Integrated photonics has been reputed for a decade as a technology of the future, but its full-blooded introduction into space systems has been hindered by several very concrete problems. The first is tunability – the ability to finely tune the properties of components like resonators and lasers to compensate for manufacturing tolerances and changes in operation. The second is the problem of voltage and power threshold values, since high driving voltages make integration with existing electronics difficult and increase energy consumption. The third challenge is industrial manufacturability itself: how to turn laboratory processes into reliable serial production.

With the support of ESA's Discovery and NAVISP Element 1 programs, Luxtelligence has developed a technology platform that addresses all three problems simultaneously. Their production process is based on precise microstructuring of thin-film ferroelectric materials, whereby extremely smooth light waveguides and very low optical losses are achieved. This opens space for modulators that work at higher speeds, at lower voltages, and with less heating.

According to demonstrations so far, Luxtelligence company chips achieve transmission speeds of the order of magnitude of hundreds of gigabits per second per single channel, whereby transmission close to 400 Gb/s has been shown, roughly four times faster than typical solutions based on silicon photonics. Such results indicate that future generations of chips could also enable terabits per second per single optical link, which is directly in line with the needs of data centers and satellite mega-constellations.

An additional advantage is that Luxtelligence develops and industrializes its technology in European production facilities. Instead of relying on suppliers from outside the continent, ESA and European industry gain a domestic source of a key component for future communication systems, whereby geopolitical risk is reduced and Europe's technological sovereignty is strengthened.

Three ESA activities that paved the way for the award

In the justification for the award, ESA specifically highlights five projects from the field of photonics, of which three were funded through the Discovery and NAVISP Element 1 programs and are directly connected to the work of Luxtelligence. These researches aimed to remove concrete technical obstacles that have so far prevented the introduction of advanced photonic integrated circuits into space missions.

High-density Lithium Niobate for low-voltage modulators

The first activity, titled “High density Lithium Niobate integrated photonic circuits for high-speed low-voltage modulators”, is focused on the development of a highly integrated photonic platform based on thin-film lithium niobate. The key goal was to transfer EPFL's laboratory nanofabrication process – including specific coating technology like “diamond-like carbon” (DLC) – into an industrial environment managed by Luxtelligence.

During the 18-month project, a set of fundamental building blocks (process design kit, PDK) was developed, including high-speed modulators with low driving voltage, waveguides, resonators, and other components necessary for more complex photonic circuits. This laid the foundation for the first European commercial platform of this kind, available also to external users who want to develop their own chips on lithium niobate.

Erbium-doped photonic integrated circuit-based amplifiers

The second activity, “Erbium-doped photonic integrated circuit-based amplifier”, was developed in cooperation with the company DEEPLIGHT and focused on building an optical amplifier on a chip compact and robust enough for space conditions, while retaining performance comparable to terrestrial systems. Erbium has long been known as a key element in optical amplifiers for telecommunication wavelengths around 1550 nm, but the challenge was to integrate it into a photonic platform on thin-film lithium niobate.

The project showed that the same manufacturing techniques that Luxtelligence uses in its factory can also be used to make amplifiers on a chip, ready for qualification in space missions. Such an approach opens the possibility of building fully integrated optical chains – from modulators to amplifiers – on a single monolithic platform, which simplifies system design, reduces mass, and increases reliability.

Thin-film Lithium Tantalate: the next step in platform development

The third, still active ESA activity, “Thin-film Lithium Tantalate on Insulator Photonics”, explores the use of lithium tantalate (LiTaO₃) as a complementary material to lithium niobate. Lithium tantalate shares many useful properties of lithium niobate – such as a strong electro-optic effect – but also offers additional benefits, for example in terms of frequency broadening, resistance to high temperatures, or stability of certain optical parameters.

Within this project, Luxtelligence applies its existing etching and processing technology to the new platform, with the aim of achieving ultra-low optical losses and very high-quality resonators on lithium tantalate. If these goals are achieved, the door will open to a new generation of integrated light sources and frequency combs that could play an important role in quantum communications, precise measurements, and advanced navigation systems.

From fundamental research to industrial success

The ESA Innovation Award for Luxtelligence comes in a year in which the Agency marks half a century of its fundamental research and development activities. Basic research programs, which began as early as the 1970s, were designed precisely to be ready for the moment when new technologies mature for practical application. From that perspective, the story of Luxtelligence is an example of how long-term investments in fundamental photonics, quantum technologies, and new materials can be turned into a concrete industrial platform.

In May 2025, the commemoration of 50 years of ESA's basic research was held in Florence, where the architects of ESA's most successful missions and entrepreneurs who are today building future space infrastructure gathered. Luxtelligence is among the companies that in such an environment show how the results of laboratory experiments cross over into the industrial world – and precisely at a moment when Europe is turning more and more attention to sovereignty in critical technologies.

For ESA and its partners, this example of success is confirmation that the Discovery and NAVISP Element 1 programs play a key role in connecting research institutions and industry. By funding riskier, but potentially revolutionary ideas in early stages of development, the Agency gives an opportunity to companies like Luxtelligence to demonstrate technologies that would otherwise remain closed in laboratories or would go outside Europe.

Implications for future missions and industry

The technologies developed by Luxtelligence have immediate implications for a series of future missions and commercial projects. In the short term, photonic chips based on lithium niobate and lithium tantalate could be found in optical terminals for satellites providing broadband internet, in inter-satellite links for the exchange of large amounts of data, and in experimental quantum communication demonstrators.

In the medium term, as products are further standardized and production costs lowered, the same platforms could expand to data centers on Earth. High-speed low-voltage modulators and integrated amplifiers could reduce energy consumption in network equipment, which is especially important in the context of the constant growth of electricity consumption due to digitization and artificial intelligence. Thus, optoelectronic chips from the space domain become part of a broader trend of “greener” and more efficient digital infrastructure.

In the long run, integrated photonics on ferroelectric thin films could become the foundation of an entire new generation of quantum and space systems. Precise frequency combs, integrated laser sources, ultra-sensitive sensors, and compact quantum communication platforms are just some of the directions in which this technology can develop. The ESA Innovation Award is a signal that the European space community is already counting on such possibilities and gives an incentive for that development to take place within Europe.

Luxtelligence, as a relatively young company that developed based on academic excellence and strategic support from ESA, shows that the transition from idea to industrial product is possible even in demanding high-tech niches. For the European space industry, this is an encouraging sign that the continent can retain and increase its role in the global race for faster, safer, and more sustainable communication systems – on Earth and in space.