On-chip erbium-doped lithium niobate waveguide amplifiers

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of on-chip erbium-doped lithium niobate waveguide amplifiers with significant gain, advancing integrated photonics by providing active devices on LNOI platform.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel fabrication process for erbium-doped LNOI waveguide amplifiers achieving high gain, a significant step forward in LNOI integrated photonics.

Findings

Achieved ~30 dB/cm net internal gain in the communication band.

Used electron beam lithography and reactive ion etching for fabrication.

Demonstrated active device development on LNOI platform.

Abstract

Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), as an emerging and promising optical integration platform, faces shortages of on-chip active devices including lasers and amplifiers. Here, we report the fabrication on-chip erbium-doped LNOI waveguide amplifiers based on electron beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching. A net internal gain of ~30 dB/cm in communication band was achieved in the fabricated waveguide amplifiers under the pump of a 974-nm continuous laser. This work develops new active devices on LNOI and will promote the development of LNOI integrated photonics.