Universal visible emitters in nanoscale integrated photonics

Published

June 30, 2023

Author(s)

Gregory Spektor, David Carlson, Zachary Newman, Jinhie Lee Skarda, Neil Sapra, Logan Su, Sindhu Jammi, Andrew Ferdinand, Amit Agrawal, Jelena Vuckovic, Scott Papp

Abstract

Visible wavelength lasers control quantum matter of atoms and molecules, enable frontiers of physical sensing, and are foundational for various applications. The development of visible integrated photonics opens the possibility for scalable circuits with complex functionalities, advancing both the frontier of physical science and technological applications. We introduce visible integrated photonics by inverse design at the nanoscale and coherent superposition of guided modes, demonstrating universal control of free-space radiation through propagation orientation, polarization distribution, phase profile, and divergence. Inverse design is an algorithm that matches function to nanophotonic device structure and is a robust tool in defined yet complex optimization problems like realizing a strontium optical clock with integrated photonics. We leverage nanoscale devices that demonstrate a suite of arbitrary emitters and integrated-photonics circuit elements with the tantala (Ta2O5) material platform, which we show supports record low loss across the visible and near-infrared range of at least 400 to 2000 nm. Our experiments highlight the generalizability of nanoscale devices for visible-laser emission from photonic integrated circuits that will be critical for the scalability of quantum technologies, including computers sensors and clocks.

Citation

Optica

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.486747

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Citation

Spektor, G. , Carlson, D. , Newman, Z. , Skarda, J. , Sapra, N. , Su, L. , Jammi, S. , Ferdinand, A. , Agrawal, A. , Vuckovic, J. and Papp, S. (2023), Universal visible emitters in nanoscale integrated photonics, Optica, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.486747, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934828 (Accessed October 14, 2025)