Integrated active lithium niobate photonic devices

Abstract

Abstract We report on the fabrication of integrated active lithium niobate (LN) photonic devices such as waveguide amplifiers and tunable lasers using the photolithography-assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE) technique. Specifically, a maximum internal net gain exceeding 20 dB is achieved in the LN waveguide amplifier, and an electro-optically tunable single-frequency laser with an ultra-narrow linewidth of 454.7 Hz is demonstrated in a high-Q LN microdisk. An electrically driven microring laser is demonstrated by the monolithic integration of a diode laser with an LN microring resonator. We also realize a hybrid integration of passive and active LN microdevices using a continuous lithographic processing approach. The integrated active LN photonic devices have a broad range of applications in light-wave communication, precision sensing and quantum information science.