Ultrafast mode-locked laser in nanophotonic lithium niobate
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1.
California Institute of Technology
Abstract
Mode-locked lasers (MLLs) generate ultrashort pulses with peak powers substantially exceeding their average powers. However, integrated MLLs that drive ultrafast nanophotonic circuits have remained elusive because of their typically low peak powers, lack of controllability, and challenges when integrating with nanophotonic platforms. In this work, we demonstrate an electrically pumped actively MLL in nanophotonic lithium niobate based on its hybrid integration with a III-V semiconductor optical amplifier. Our MLL generates ∼ 4.8-ps optical pulses around 1065 nm at a repetition rate of ∼10 GHz, with energies exceeding 2.6 pJ and peak powers beyond 0.5 W. The repetition rate and the carrier-envelope offset frequency of the output can be controlled in a wide range by using the driving frequency and the pump current, providing a route for fully stabilized on-chip frequency combs.
Copyright and License
© 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
Acknowledgement
The device nanofabrication was performed at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) at Caltech. The authors thank K. Vahala for loaning equipment. Q.G. thanks M.Xu for the helpful discussions.
Funding
The authors acknowledge support from ARO grant no. W911NF-23-1-0048, NSF grant nos. 1846273 and 1918549, AFOSR award FA9550-23-1-0755, and NASA JPL. The authors thank NTT Research for their financial and technical support.
Contributions
Q.G. and A.M. conceived the project. Q.G. fabricated the devices with assistance from R.S. Q.G. performed the measurements and numerical simulation. R.S., J.W., B.K.G., R.M.G., L.L., L.C., and S.Z. assisted with the measurements. B.K.G., R.M.G., A.R., and M.L. helped with the numerical simulation and data analysis. Q G. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. A.M. supervised the project.
Data Availability
All data are available in the manuscript or the supplementary materials. The data files supporting the plots in the main text and the computer code for simulating the MLL are available at Figshare (36).
Conflict of Interest
Q.G. and A.M. are inventors on a patent application (US patent application no. 17/500,425) that covers the concept and implementation of the actively MLL in this work. L.L. and A.M. are involved in developing photonic integrated nonlinear circuits at PINC Technologies Inc. L.L. and A.M. have an equity interest in PINC Technologies Inc. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1095-9203
- W911NF-23-1-0048
- United States Army Research Office
- ECCS-1846273
- National Science Foundation
- CCF-1918549
- National Science Foundation
- FA9550-23-1-0755
- United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- NTT (Japan)
- Caltech groups
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute