Intense optical parametric amplification in dispersion engineered nanophotonic lithium niobate waveguides

Abstract

Strong amplification in integrated photonics is one of the most desired optical functionalities for computing, communications, sensing, and quantum information processing. Semiconductor gain and cubic nonlinearities, such as four-wave mixing and stimulated Raman and Brillouin scattering, have been among the most studied amplification mechanisms on chip. Alternatively, material platforms with strong quadratic nonlinearities promise numerous advantages with respect to gain and bandwidth, among which nanophotonic lithium niobate is one of the most promising candidates. Here, we combine quasi-phase matching with dispersion engineering in nanophotonic lithium niobate waveguides and achieve intense optical parametric amplification. We measure a broadband phase-sensitive on-chip amplification larger than 45 dB/cm in a 2.5-mm-long waveguide. We further confirm high gain operation in the degenerate and non-degenerate regimes by amplifying vacuum fluctuations to macroscopic levels in a 6-mm-long waveguide, with on-chip gains exceeding 100 dB/cm over 600 nm of bandwidth around 2 $\mu$m. Our results unlock new possibilities for on-chip few-cycle nonlinear optics, mid-infrared photonics, and quantum photonics.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Photonics for artificial intelligence and neuromorphic computing
• A squeezed quantum microcomb on a chip

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Few-cycle vacuum squeezing in nanophotonics
• A squeezed quantum microcomb on a chip
• Femtojoule, femtosecond all-optical switching in lithium niobate nanophotonics
• Photonic chip-based continuous-travelling-wave parametric amplifier
• Titanium:Sapphire-on-insulator for broadband tunable lasers and high-power amplifiers on chip
• Ultra-broadband mid-infrared generation in dispersion-engineered thin-film lithium niobate
• Octave-spanning tunable parametric oscillation in nanophotonics
• Temporal Walk-off Induced Dissipative Quadratic Solitons
• Femtosecond pulse amplification on a chip
• Mid-Infrared Cross-Comb Spectroscopy
• Tunable and efficient ultraviolet generation in nanophotonic lithium niobate
• Efficient and tunable blue light generation using lithium niobate nonlinear photonics
• InGaP ${\chi }^{(2)}$ integrated photonics platform for broadband, ultra-efficient nonlinear conversion and entangled photon generation
• Mesoscopic ultrafast nonlinear optics -- The emergence of multimode quantum non-Gaussian physics
• An Optical Parametric Amplifier via ${\chi }^{(2)}$ in AlGaAs Waveguides
• Ultrabroadband tunable difference frequency generation in standardized thin-film lithium niobate platform
• High-Power Mid-IR Few-Cycle Frequency Comb from Quadratic Solitons in an Optical Parametric Oscillator
• Large-scale time-multiplexed nanophotonic parametric oscillators
• Few-mode squeezing in type-I parametric downconversion by complete group velocity matching
• Versatile optical frequency combs based on multi-seeded femtosecond optical parametric generation
• Quadratic-soliton-enhanced mid-IR molecular sensing
• Ultrashort-pulse-pumped, single-mode type-0 squeezers in lithium niobate nanophotonics
• Enhancing Nonreciprocity through Squeezing-Induced Symmetry Breaking
• Optical-parametric-amplification-enhanced background-free spectroscopy
• Two-optical-cycle pulses from nanophotonic two-color soliton compression
• Investigation of nanophotonic lithium niobate waveguides for on-chip evanescent wave sensing
• Practical Limits on Integrated Squeezers