On-chip optical parametric oscillation into the visible: generating red, orange, yellow, and green from a near-infrared pump
Xiyuan Lu, Gregory Moille, Ashutosh Rao, Daron A. Westly, Kartik Srinivasan
Abstract
The on-chip generation of coherent, single-frequency laser light that can be tuned across the visible spectrum would help enable a variety of applications in spectroscopy, metrology, and quantum science. Recently, third-order optical parametric oscillation (OPO) in a microresonator has shown great promise as an efficient and scalable approach toward this end. However, considering visible light generation, so far only red light at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo><</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>420</mml:mn> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">T</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">H</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">z</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> (near the edge of the visible band) has been reported. In this work, we overcome strong material dispersion at visible wavelengths and demonstrate on-chip OPO in a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">S</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">i</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">N</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> microresonator covering <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>></mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mn>130</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">T</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">H</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">z</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of the visible spectrum, including red, orange, yellow, and green wavelengths. In particular, using an input pump laser that is scanned 5 THz in the near-infrared from 386 THz to 391 THz, the OPO output signal is tuned from the near-infrared at 395 THz to the visible at 528 THz, while the OPO output idler is tuned from the near-infrared at 378 THz to the infrared at 254 THz. The widest signal-idler separation of 274 THz is more than an octave in span and is the widest demonstrated for a nanophotonic OPO to date. More generally, our work shows how nonlinear nanophotonics can transform light from readily accessible compact near-infrared lasers to targeted visible wavelengths of interest.