Thin-film lithium niobate is an attractive integrated photonics platform due to its low optical loss and favorable optical nonlinear and electro-optic properties. However, in applications such as second harmonic generation, frequency comb generation, and microwave-to-optics conversion, the device performance is strongly impeded by the photorefractive effect inherent in thin-films. In this paper, we show that the dielectric cladding on lithium niobate microring resonator has a significant influence on the photorefractive effect. By removing the dielectric cladding layer, the photorefractive effect in lithium niobate ring resonators can be effectively mitigated. Our work presents a reliable approach to control the photorefractive effect on thin-film lithium niobate and will further advance the performance of integrated classical and quantum photonic devices based on thin-film lithium niobate.
Optical microresonators have recently attracted a growing attention in the photonics community. Their applications range from quantum electro-dynamics to sensors and filtering devices for optical telecommunication systems, where they are likely to become an essential building block. The integration of nonlinear and electro-optical properties in the resonators represents a very stimulating challenge, as it would incorporate new and more advanced functionality. Lithium niobate is an excellent candidate material, being an established choice for electro-optic and nonlinear optical applications. He…
We demonstrate an ultralow loss monolithic integrated lithium niobate photonic platform consisting of dry-etched subwavelength waveguides. We show microring resonators with a quality factor of 10$^7$ and waveguides with propagation loss as low as 2.7 dB/m.
The lithium niobate integrated photonic platform has recently shown great promise in nonlinear optics on a chip scale. Here, we report second-harmonic generation in a high-Q lithium niobate microring resonator through modal phase matching, with a conversion efficiency of 1,500% W$^{-1}$. Our device also allows us to observe difference-frequency generation in the telecom band. Our work demonstrates the great potential of the lithium niobate integrated platform for nonlinear wavelength conversion with high efficiencies.
We demonstrate ultra-high Q factor microring resonators close to the intrinsic material absorption limit on lithium niobate on insulator. The microrings are fabricated on pristine lithium niobate (LN) thin film wafer thinned from LN bulk via chemo-mechanical etching without ion slicing and ion etching. A record-high Q factor up to times ten to the power of 8th at the wavelength of 1550 nm is achieved because of the ultra-smooth interface of the microrings and the absence of ion induced lattice damage, indicating an ultra-low waveguide propagation loss of about 0.28 dB per meter. The ultra-high…
We demonstrate monolithic integration of an electro-optically (EO) tunable microring laser on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) platform. The device is fabricated by photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE), and the pump laser is evanescently coupled into the erbium (Er3+) doped LN microring laser using an undoped LN waveguide mounted above the microring. The quality factor of the LN microring resonator is measured as high as 1.54x10^5 at the wavelength of 1542 nm. Lasing action can be observed at a pump power threshold below 3.5 mW using a 980 nm continuous-wave pump laser…
Simultaneous generation of Raman-assisted Soliton Microcombs and Tunable Multi-chromatic Raman Microlasers in Single Monolithic Thin-film Lithium Niobate Microrings
Cavity nonlinear optics enables intriguing physical phenomena to occur at micro- or nano-scales with modest input powers. While this enhances capabilities in applications such as comb generation, frequency conversion and quantum optics, undesired nonlinear effects including photorefraction and thermal bistability are exacerbated. In this letter, we propose and demonstrate a highly effective method of achieving cavity stabilization using an auxiliary laser for controlling photorefraction in a z-cut periodically poled lithium niobate (LN) microcavity system. Our numerical study accurately models…
The absence of the single-photon nonlinearity has been a major roadblock in developing quantum photonic circuits at optical frequencies. In this paper, we demonstrate a periodically-poled thin film lithium niobate microring resonator (PPLNMR) that reaches 5,000,000%/W second harmonic conversion efficiency---almost 20-fold enhancement over the state-of-the-art---by accessing its largest $χ^{(2)}$ tensor component $d_{33}$ via quasi-phase matching. The corresponding single photon coupling rate $g/2π$ is estimated to be 1.2 MHz, which is an important milestone as it approaches the dissipation rat…
Microring resonators are critical photonic components used in filtering, sensing and nonlinear applications. To date, the development of high performance microring resonators in LNOI has been limited by the sidewall angle, roughness and etch depth of fabricated rib waveguides. We present large free spectral range microring resonators patterned via electron beam lithography in high-index contrast $Z$-cut LNOI. Our microring resonators achieve an FSR greater than 5 nm for ring radius of 30 $μ$m and a large 3 dB resonance bandwidth. We demonstrate 3 pm/V electro-optic tuning of a 70 $μ$m-radius r…
Lithium niobate (LN), dubbed by many as the silicon of photonics, has recently risen to the forefront of chip-scale nonlinear optics research since its demonstration as an ultralow-loss integrated photonics platform. Due to its significant quadratic nonlinearity ($χ^{(2)}$), LN inspires many important applications such as second-harmonic generation (SHG), spontaneous parametric down-conversion, and optical parametric oscillation. Here, we demonstrate high-efficiency SHG in dual-resonant, periodically poled z-cut LN microrings, where quasi-phase matching is realized by field-assisted domain eng…
High complexity, dense integrated nanophotonic circuits possessing strong nonlinearities are desirable for a breadth of applications in classical and quantum optics. In this work, we study natural phase matching via modal engineering in lithium niobate (LN) waveguides and microring resonators on chip for second harmonic generation (SHG). By carefully engineering the geometry dispersion, we observe a $26\%~W^{-1}cm^{-2}$ normalized efficiency for SHG in a waveguide with submicron transverse mode confinement. With similar cross-sectional dimensions, we demonstrate phase matched SHG in a microrin…
We report intracavity Bragg scattering induced by photorefractive (PR) effect in high-Q lithium niobate (LN) ring resonators at cryogenic temperatures. We show that, when a cavity mode is strongly excited, the PR effect imprints a long-lived periodic space-charge field. This residual field in turn creates a refractive index modulation pattern that dramatically enhances the back scattering of an incoming probe light, and results in selective and reconfigurable mode splittings. This PR-induced Bragg scattering effect, despite being undesired for many applications, could be utilized to enable opt…
Dual-comb generated in single thin-film lithium niobate microrings
East China Normal University（华东师范大学）；Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所）；Nanjing University（南京大学）；Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Sciences（上海量子科学研究与创新中心）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University（山西大学极端光学协同创新中心）；Collaborative Innovation Center of Light Manipulations and Applications, Shandong Normal University（山东师范大学光调控与应用协同创新中心）
Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), regarded as an important candidate platform for optical integration due to its excellent nonlinear, electro-optic and other physical properties, has become a research hotspot. Light source, as an essential component for integrated optical system, is urgently needed. In this paper, we reported the realization of 1550-nm band on-chip LNOI microlasers based on erbium-doped LNOI ring cavities with loaded quality factors higher than one million, which were fabricated by using electron beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching processes…
We report the optical and dielectric properties in hafnium (Hf)-doped lithium niobate (LN) crystals. We investigated samples of congruent composition with various doping concentration varying from 0 to 8 mol%. The clamped and unclamped values of the electro-optic coefficient r 22 of Hf-doped LN and the corresponding dielectric permittivity as well, have been experimentally determined and compared with the results obtained in undoped congruent LN crystals. We show that the electro-optic and dielectric properties are only slightly affected by the introduction of hafnium ions, and therefore Hf-do…
We overcome the difficulty in realizing a monolithic waveguide-coupled microring laser integrated on erbium-doped thin film lithium niobate (Er: TFLN) using photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE) technique. We demonstrate an integrated single-frequency microring laser operating around 1531 nm wavelength. The PLACE technique, enabling integrated Er: TFLN photonics with low propagation loss, can thus be used to realize low cost mass production of monolithic on-chip microlasers with applications ranging from optical communication and photonic integrated circuit (PIC) to precis…
We investigate the impact of photorefractive effect on lithium niobate integrated quantum photonic circuits dedicated to continuous variable on-chip experiments. The circuit main building blocks, i.e. cavities, directional couplers, and periodically poled nonlinear waveguides are studied. This work demonstrates that, even when the effect of photorefractivity is weaker than spatial mode hopping, they might compromise the success of on-chip quantum photonics experiments. We describe in detail the characterization methods leading to the identification of this possible issue. We also study to whic…
Erbium-doped lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) laser plays an important role in the complete photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Here, we demonstrate an integrated tunable whisper galley single mode laser (WGSML) by making use of a pair of coupled microdisk and microring on LNOI. A 974 nm single-mode pump light can have an excellent resonance in the designed microdisk, which is beneficial to the whisper gallery mode (WGM) laser generation. The WGSML at 1560.40 nm with a maximum 31.4 dB side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) has been achieved. By regulating the temperature, WGSMLs output power i…
Modern communication networks require high performance and scalable electro-optic modulators that convert electrical signals to optical signals at high speed. Existing lithium niobate modulators have excellent performance but are bulky and prohibitively expensive to scale up. Here we demonstrate scalable and high-performance nanophotonic electro-optic modulators made of single-crystalline lithium niobate microring resonators and micro-Mach-Zehnder interferometers. We show a half-wave electro-optic modulation efficiency of 1.8V$\cdot$cm and data rates up to 40 Gbps.
For its many useful properties, including second and third-order optical nonlinearity as well as electro-optic control, lithium niobate is considered an important potential microcomb material. Here, a soliton microcomb is demonstrated in a monolithic high-Q lithium niobate resonator. Besides the demonstration of soliton mode locking, the photorefractive effect enables mode locking to self-start and soliton switching to occur bi-directionally. Second-harmonic generation of the soliton spectrum is also observed, an essential step for comb self-referencing. The Raman shock time constant of lithiu…
Lithium niobate (LN) exhibits unique material characteristics that have found many important applications. Scaling LN devices down to a nanoscopic scale can dramatically enhance light-matter interaction that would enable nonlinear and quantum photonic functionalities beyond the reach of conventional means. However, developing LN-based nanophotonic devices turns out to be nontrivial. Although significant efforts have been devoted in recent years, LN photonic crystal structures developed to date exhibit fairly low quality. Here we demonstrate LN photonic crystal nanobeam resonators with optical …
Microcavity lasers based on erbium-doped lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), which are key devices for LNOI integrated photonics, have attracted much attention recently. In this Letter, we report the realization of a C-band single-mode laser using Vernier effect in two coupled Erbium-doped LNOI microrings with different radii under the pump of a 980-nm continuous laser. The laser, operating stably over a large range of pumping power, has a pump threshold of ~200 μW and a side-mode suppression ratio exceeding 26 dB. The high-performance LNOI single-mode laser will promote the development of li…
Superconducting cavity electro-optics (EO) presents a promising route to coherently convert microwave and optical photons and distribute quantum entanglement between superconducting circuits over long-distance through an optical network. High EO conversion efficiency demands transduction materials with strong Pockels effect and excellent optical transparency. Thin-film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) offers these desired characteristics however so far has only delivered unidirectional conversion with efficiencies on the order of $10^{-5}$, largely impacted by its prominent photorefractive (PR) effect a…
A high-resolution broad-spectral-bandwidth spectrometer on a chip would create new opportunities for gas-phase molecular fingerprinting, especially in environmental sensing. A resolution high enough to observe transitions at atmospheric pressure and the simultaneous sensitive detection of multiple atoms or molecules are the key challenges. Here, an electro-optic microring-based dual-comb interferometer, fabricated on a low-loss lithium-niobate-on-insulator nanophotonic platform, demonstrates significant progress towards such an achievement. Spectra spanning 1.6 THz (53 cm-1) at a resolution of…
Materials with strong $χ^{(2)}$ optical nonlinearity, especially lithium niobate, play a critical role in building optical parametric oscillators (OPOs). However, chip-scale integration of low-loss $χ^{(2)}$ materials remains challenging and limits the threshold power of on-chip $χ^{(2)}$ OPO. Here we report the first on-chip lithium niobate optical parametric oscillator at the telecom wavelengths using a quasi-phase matched, high-quality microring resonator, whose threshold power ($\sim$30 $μ$W) is 400 times lower than that in previous $χ^{(2)}$ integrated photonics platforms. An on-chip powe…
High-efficiency integrated laser on erbium-doped lithium niobate-on-insulator
MOE Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, School of Physics and TEDA Institute of Applied Physics, Nankai University（南开大学物理学院与泰达应用物理研究院弱光非线性光子学教育部重点实验室）
Integrated photonics is a powerful platform that can improve the performance and stability of optical systems, while providing low-cost, small-footprint and scalable alternatives to implementations based on free-space optics. While great progress has been made on the development of low-loss integrated photonics platforms at telecom wavelengths, visible wavelength range has received less attention. Yet, many applications utilize visible or near-visible light, including those in optical imaging, optogenetics, and quantum science and technology. Here we demonstrate an ultra-low loss integrated vi…
Integrated photonics operating at visible-near-infrared (VNIR) wavelengths offer scalable platforms for advancing optical systems for addressing atomic clocks, sensors, and quantum computers. The complexity of free-space control optics causes limited addressability of atoms and ions, and this remains an impediment on scalability and cost. Networks of Mach-Zehnder interferometers can overcome challenges in addressing atoms by providing high-bandwidth electro-optic control of multiple output beams. Here, we demonstrate a VNIR Mach-Zehnder interferometer on lithium niobate on sapphire with a CMOS…
Lithium niobate (LN) is a promising material for future complex photonic-electronic circuits, with wide applications in fields like communications, sensing, quantum optics, and computation. LN took a great stride toward compact photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with the development of partially-etched LN on insulator (LNOI) waveguides. However, integration density is still limited for future high-compact PICs due to the partial edge nature of their waveguides. Here, we demonstrate a fully-etched LN PIC platform which, for the first time, simultaneously achieves ultra-low propagation loss and…
