Integrated ytterbium gain for visible-near-infrared photonics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates integrated ytterbium gain in an aluminum oxide photonic platform, achieving high-power lasing, amplification, and supercontinuum generation in the visible-near-infrared range, enabling scalable photonic systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated ytterbium-based gain platform compatible with standard photonic circuits for scalable visible-near-infrared photonics.

Findings

Achieved single-mode lasing and amplification with >0.5 W output power.

Realized femtosecond pulse amplification to 14 kW peak power.

Generated supercontinuum extending from 780 to 476 nm.

Abstract

Rare-earth gain media form the foundation of modern optical communications, emerging quantum hardware, and ultrafast optics. While chip-scale integration can enable fiber-like, and potentially beyond-fiber, functionality with unprecedented scalability, development in the visible and near-infrared remains in its early stages. Here, we demonstrate ytterbium-based optical gain integrated into an aluminum oxide photonic platform, achieving both single-mode lasing and optical amplification in the near-infrared regime. This platform delivers optical amplification with output powers exceeding 0.5 W, an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency above 70%, and a noise figure of 3.3 dB, approaching the quantum limit for phase-insensitive amplification. Furthermore, we achieve femtosecond pulse amplification to a record peak power of 14 kW, enabling supercontinuum generation with visible dispersive waves extending from 780 to 476 nm in conjunction with nonlinear photonic devices. This platform is compatible with heterogeneous integration into standard photonic circuits, laying the foundation for scalable visible-near-infrared photonic systems, including coherent laser arrays, mode-locked lasers, optical clocks, and microwave oscillators.