Researchers develop fully integrated high-power laser on a lithium niobate chip, paving the way for high-powered telecommunication systems, fully integrated spectrometers, optical remote sensing, and efficient frequency conversion for quantum networks, among other applications.

New research paper from Harvard, in collaboration with Freedom Photonics and HyperLight Corp, and with funding from DARPA and Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

“Integrated thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics has emerged as a promising platform for the realization of high-performance chip-scale optical systems. Of particular importance are TFLN electro-optic modulators featuring high-linearity, low driving voltage and low propagation loss. However, a fully integrated system requires integration of high power, low noise, and narrow linewidth lasers on TFLN chips. Here we achieve this goal, and demonstrate integrated high-power lasers on TFLN platform with up to 60 mW of optical power in the waveguides. We use this platform to realize a high-power transmitter consisting of an electrically pumped laser integrated with a 50 GHz modulator.”

Find the open access technical paper here. Published April 2022.  Find the Harvard summary article here.

Amirhassan Shams-Ansari, Dylan Renaud, Rebecca Cheng, Linbo Shao, Lingyan He, Di Zhu, Mengjie Yu, Hannah R. Grant, Leif Johansson, Mian Zhang, and Marko Lončar, “Electrically pumped laser transmitter integrated on thin-film lithium niobate,” Optica 9, 408-411 (2022).

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