Nanophotonic tantala waveguides for supercontinuum generation pumped at 1560 nm

Published

July 22, 2020

Author(s)

Kieran F. LaMee, David Carlson, Zachary Newman, Su P. Yu, Scott Papp

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate efficient and broadband supercontinuum generation in nonlinear tantala (Ta2O5) waveguides using a 1560 nm femtosecond seed laser. With incident pulse energies as low as 100 pJ, we create spectra spanning up to 1.6 octaves across the visible and infrared. Fabricated devices feature propagation losses as low as 10 dB/m, and they can be dispersion engineered through lithographic patterning for specific applications. We show a waveguide design suitable for low-power self-referencing of a fiber frequency comb that produces dispersive-wave radiation directly at the second-harmonic wavelength of the seed laser. A fiber-connectorized, hermetically sealed module with 2 dB per facet insertion loss and watt-level averagepower handling is also described. Highly efficient and fully packaged tantala waveguides may open new possibilities for the integration of nonlinear nanophotonics into systems for precision timing, quantum science, biological imaging, and remote sensing.

Citation

Optics Letters

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

integrated photonics, nonlinear optics, supercontinuum generation

Citation

LaMee, K. , Carlson, D. , Newman, Z. , Yu, S. and Papp, S. (2020), Nanophotonic tantala waveguides for supercontinuum generation pumped at 1560 nm, Optics Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.396950 (Accessed May 5, 2024)