High-gain waveguide amplifiers in Si3N4 technology via double-layer monolithic integration

Jinfeng Mu*, Meindert Dijkstra, Jeroen Korterik, Herman Offerhaus, Sonia M. García-Blanco

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

81 Citations (Scopus)
273 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Silicon nitride (Si3N4)-on-SiO2 attracts increasing interest in integrated photonics owing to its low propagation loss and wide transparency window, extending from ∼400 nm to 2350 nm. Scalable integration of active devices such as amplifiers and lasers on the Si3N4 platform will enable applications requiring optical gain and a much-needed alternative to hybrid integration, which suffers from high cost and lack of high-volume manufacturability. We demonstrate a high-gain optical amplifier in Al2O3:Er3+ monolithically integrated on the Si3N4 platform using a double photonic layer approach. The device exhibits a net Si3N4-to-Si3N4 gain of 18.1 ± 0.9 dB at 1532 nm, and a broadband gain operation over 70 nm covering wavelengths in the S-, C- and L-bands. This work shows that rare-earth-ion-doped materials and in particular, rare-earth-ion-doped Al2O3, can provide very high net amplification for the Si3N4 platform, paving the way to the development of different active devices monolithically integrated in this passive platform.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1634-1641
Number of pages8
JournalPhotonics Research
Volume8
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2020

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