美国哥伦比亚大学Mateus Corato-Zanarella和Michal Lipson团队取得一项新突破。他们开发出从近紫外到近红外波长的宽可调谐和窄线宽芯片级激光器。相关论文于2022年12月23日发表在《自然—光子学》杂志上。

研究人员演示了一个芯片级的可见激光平台，可以实现近紫外到近红外波长的可调谐窄线宽激光。使用微米级的氮化硅谐振器和商用Fabry-Pérot激光二极管，团队实现了高达12.5nm粗调和33.9GHz无跳模微调，本征线宽低至几千赫兹。

此外，研究人员还展示了高达267 GHz μs^-1的微调速度、高达10mW的光纤耦合功率和35dB以上的典型边模抑制比。这些芯片级激光器的规格以前只在大型最先进的台式激光系统中实现，为此，该芯片级激光器会脱颖而出，成为下一代可见光技术的强大工具。

据悉，可见光波长的宽可调窄线宽激光器是量子光学、光学时钟、原子和分子物理学等应用所必需的。目前，激光器是台式系统，这使得这些技术无法在研究实验室之外得到应用。

附：英文原文

Title: Widely tunable and narrow-linewidth chip-scale lasers from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths

Author: Corato-Zanarella, Mateus, Gil-Molina, Andres, Ji, Xingchen, Shin, Min Chul, Mohanty, Aseema, Lipson, Michal

Issue&Volume: 2022-12-23

Abstract: Widely tunable and narrow-linewidth lasers at visible wavelengths are necessary for applications such as quantum optics, optical clocks and atomic and molecular physics. At present, the lasers are benchtop systems, which precludes these technologies from being used outside research laboratories. Here we demonstrate a chip-scale visible laser platform that enables tunable and narrow-linewidth lasers from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths. Using micrometre-scale silicon nitride resonators and commercial Fabry–Pérot laser diodes, we achieve coarse tuning up to 12.5nm and mode-hop-free fine tuning up to 33.9GHz with intrinsic linewidths down to a few kilohertz. In addition, we show fine-tuning speeds of up to 267GHzμs1, fibre-coupled powers of up to 10mW and typical side-mode suppression ratios above 35dB. These specifications of our chip-scale lasers have only been achieved previously using large state-of-the-art benchtop laser systems, making our lasers stand out as powerful tools for the next generation of visible-light technologies.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-022-01120-w

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01120-w