On-chip electrically reconfigurable octave-bandwidth optical amplification from visible to near-infrared

TL;DR

This paper presents an electrically reconfigurable on-chip optical amplifier that spans an octave bandwidth from visible to near-infrared, enabling versatile quantum and classical photonic applications without high-power visible pumps.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel lithium niobate integrated photonic OPA with high nonlinearity and dispersion engineering, achieving record broadband gain and reconfigurability from visible to NIR.

Findings

Achieved over an octave of gain bandwidth (770-1650 nm).

Delivered a peak on-chip gain of 23.67 dB with low pump power.

Eliminated the need for high-power visible or UV pumps.

Abstract

Achieving broadband on-chip optical amplification spanning the visible and near-infrared (NIR) can enable diverse quantum sensing, metrology, and classical communication applications within a single unified device. However, conventional semiconductor and ion-doped amplifiers suffer from limited gain bandwidths set by fixed energy levels, while optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) operating continuously from the visible to the NIR have remained elusive due to dispersion-limited bandwidth and the high pump powers required in the visible or ultraviolet (UV). Here, we overcome these limitations by introducing an electrically reconfigurable OPA architecture on lithium niobate integrated photonics. By synergistically combining ultra-high effective $\chi^{(2)}$ nonlinearity ($\sim$7,000\%/W-cm$^2$), high-order dispersion engineering, and local electro-thermal tuning of quasi-phase matching, our device achieves record gain spectral spanning more than an optical octave, from 770 to 1650 nm. This range covers key transitions of many photonic quantum systems and all telecommunication bands. Moreover, our approach eliminates the need for high-power, wavelength-tunable visible or UV pumps, delivering a peak on-chip gain of 23.67 dB with a single 1060 nm pump at 90 mW average on-chip power. This work opens new avenues for multi-functional, reconfigurable photonics unifying the visible and infrared regimes, with broad implications for quantum sensing and communications.