An Integrated Photonic Platform for Rare-Earth Ions in Thin Film Lithium Niobate

Abstract

Rare-earth ion ensembles doped in single crystals are a promising materials system with widespread applications in optical signal processing, lasing, and quantum information processing. Incorporating rare-earth ions into integrated photonic devices could enable compact lasers and modulators, as well as on-chip optical quantum memories for classical and quantum optical applications. To this end, a thin film single crystalline wafer structure that is compatible with planar fabrication of integrated photonic devices would be highly desirable. However, incorporating rare-earth ions into a thin film form-factor while preserving their optical properties has proven challenging. We demonstrate an integrated photonic platform for rare-earth ions doped in a single crystalline thin film on insulator. The thin film is composed of lithium niobate doped with Tm3+. The ions in the thin film exhibit optical lifetimes identical to those measured in bulk crystals. We show narrow spectral holes in a thin film waveguide that require up to 2 orders of magnitude lower power to generate than previously reported bulk waveguides. Our results pave way for scalable on-chip lasers, optical signal processing devices, and integrated optical quantum memories.

References in corpus (7)

• The Quantum Internet
• Monolithic Ultrahigh-Q Lithium Niobate Microring Resonator
• Low-loss fiber-to-chip interface for lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits
• Scalable designs for quantum computing with rare-earth-ion-doped crystals
• High coupling efficiency grating couplers on lithium niobate on insulator
• Nanostructuring of LNOI for efficient edge coupling
• Interference of multi-mode photon echoes generated in spatially separated solid-state atomic ensembles