Large mode volume integrated Brillouin lasers for scalable ultra-Low linewidth and high power

Abstract

Generating ultra-low linewidths and high output power in an integrated single mode laser remains a critical challenge for future compact, portable, precision applications. Moreso, achieving these characteristics in a laser design that enables scaling to lower linewidths and higher power, and implementation in a wafer-scale integration platform that can operate from visible to near-IR and be integrated with other components. Such an advance could impact a wide array of applications including atomic and quantum sensing and computing, metrology, coherent fiber communications and sensing, and ultra-low-noise mmWave and RF generation. Yet, achieving these goals in an integrated laser has remained elusive. Here, we report a class of integrated laser that overcomes these limitations, with demonstration of a 31 mHz instantaneous linewidth, the lowest linewidth to date to the best of our knowledge, with 41 mW output power and 73 dB sidemode suppression ratio and can be tuned across a 22.5 nm range. This performance is possible due to Brillouin nonlinear dynamics that occurs within a large mode volume, nonlinear photon-phonon, MHz-scale-FSR, ultra-low loss silicon nitride resonator cavity. This laser design can scale to a new operating regime of mHz fundamental linewidth and Watt class lasers. Such lasers hold promise to unlock new sensitivity and fidelity for precision quantum experiments, portable precision applications, and atomic, molecular, and optical physics.