Integrated ytterbium gain for visible-near-infrared photonics
Abstract
Rare-earth gain media form the foundation of modern optical communications, emerging quantum hardware, and ultrafast optics. While chip-scale integration can enable fiber-like, and potentially beyond-fiber, functionality with unprecedented scalability, development in the visible and near-infrared remains in its early stages. Here, we demonstrate ytterbium-based optical gain integrated into an aluminum oxide photonic platform, achieving both single-mode lasing and optical amplification in the near-infrared regime. This platform delivers optical amplification with output powers exceeding 0.5 W, an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency above 70%, and a noise figure of 3.3 dB, approaching the quantum limit for phase-insensitive amplification. Furthermore, we achieve femtosecond pulse amplification to a record peak power of 14 kW, enabling supercontinuum generation with visible dispersive waves extending from 780 to 476 nm in conjunction with nonlinear photonic devices. This platform is compatible with heterogeneous integration into standard photonic circuits, laying the foundation for scalable visible-near-infrared photonic systems, including coherent laser arrays, mode-locked lasers, optical clocks, and microwave oscillators.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.13828,
title = {Integrated ytterbium gain for visible-near-infrared photonics},
author = {Tianyi Zeng and Erik W. Masselink and Tsung-Han Wu and Nathan Brooks and Peter Chang and Grisha Spektor and Zachary L. Newman and Danxian Liu and Scott B. Papp and David R. Carlson and Scott A. Diddams and Kiyoul Yang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.13828},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
9 pages, 4 figures, supplementary information included. T. Zeng and E. W. Masselink contributed equally to this work