C2N – ErAmpl

Ultra-high on-chip optical gain in erbium-based hybrid slot waveguides

One of the obstacles to the development of silicon photonic circuits, particularly with a view to their co-integration with electronics functions, is to solve the serious problem of optical losses. The main possible approach to this objective is the realization of integrated optical amplifiers. In this context, we are actively collaborating with AALTO University (Finland) to develop hybrid active optical waveguides that integrate Erbium-doped oxides into a silicon or Si3N4 waveguide profile. Through extensive optimization of the guides and active material, this approach leads to guides that can be optically pumped and lead to a gain mechanism in the near infrared at around 1.55µm.
The results obtained recently are extremely promising and open up a very rich range of possible applications, particularly for the realisation of integrated lasers on a chip with a small surface area and low pump power. All this work is based on a 1.48µm pump scheme and gradually integrates designs of DFB lasers and two-dimensional (potentially slow wave) photonic crystal lasers.

"Ultra-high on-chip optical gain in erbium-based hybrid slot waveguides", John Rönn, Weiwei Zhang, Anton Autere, Xavier Leroux, Lasse Pakarinen, Carlos Alonso-Ramos, Antti Säynätjoki, Harri Lipsanen, Laurent Vivien, Eric Cassan, Zhipei Sun,

Nature Communications 10, Article number: 432 (2019)