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Visible-to-ultraviolet frequency comb generation in lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguides

Nature Photonics volume 18, pages 218–223 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The introduction of nonlinear nanophotonic devices to the field of optical frequency comb metrology has enabled new opportunities for low-power and chip-integrated clocks, high-precision frequency synthesis and broad-bandwidth spectroscopy. However, most of these advances remain constrained to the near-infrared region of the spectrum, which has restricted the integration of frequency combs with numerous quantum and atomic systems in the ultraviolet and visible ranges. Here we overcome this shortcoming with the introduction of multisegment nanophotonic thin-film lithium niobate waveguides that combine engineered dispersion and chirped quasi-phase matching for efficient supercontinuum generation via the combination of χ(2) and χ(3) nonlinearities. With only 90 pJ of pulse energy at 1,550 nm, we achieve gap-free frequency comb coverage spanning 330–2,400 nm. The conversion efficiency from the near-infrared pump to the ultraviolet–visible region of 350–550 nm is 17%, and our modelling of optimized poling structures predicts an even higher efficiency. Harmonic generation via the χ(2) nonlinearity in the same waveguide directly yields the carrier-envelope offset frequency and a means to verify the comb coherence at wavelengths as short as 350 nm. Our results provide an integrated photonics approach to create visible and ultraviolet frequency combs that will impact precision spectroscopy, quantum information processing and optical clock applications in this important spectral window.

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Fig. 1: Nanophotonic LN waveguides for UV-to-near-infrared frequency comb generation.
Fig. 2: Spectral evolution of broad-bandwidth frequency comb generation.
Fig. 3: Broad-bandwidth coherence and carrier-envelope offset frequency detection.
Fig. 4: UV spectral limits and efficiency.
Fig. 5: Nonlinear spectral evolution in thin-film LN waveguides with χ(3) and χ(2) nonlinearities.

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Data availability

All data required to reproduce the figures in this paper are available via the University of Colorado CU Scholar at https://scholar.colorado.edu.

Code availability

The simulations were carried out using the open-source code PyNLO42.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation AST 2009982 (P.S. and C.F.), EECS1846273 (L.L., R.S., Q.G. and A.M.) and QLCI award no. OMA-2016244 (S.A.D. and T.-H.W.); the Air Force Office of Scientific Research FA9550-20-1-0040 (L.L., R.S., Q.G. and A.M.); the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on a Chip program (S.A.D. and T.-H.W.); and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and funded through the internal Research and Technology Development program RSA 1671354 (P.S. and R.M.B). Device nanofabrication was performed at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) at Caltech. We acknowledge helpful comments on the paper from K. Chang and J. Black and valuable input from S. Liefer in the early stages of this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA

    Tsung-Han Wu, Connor Fredrick, Pooja Sekhar & Scott A. Diddams

  2. Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Tsung-Han Wu, Connor Fredrick, Pooja Sekhar & Scott A. Diddams

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Luis Ledezma, Ryoto Sekine, Qiushi Guo & Alireza Marandi

  4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Luis Ledezma & Ryan M. Briggs

  5. Electrical Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Scott A. Diddams

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Contributions

T.-H.W., C.F. and S.A.D. conceived the waveguide designs. L.L. fabricated the waveguides with assistance from R.S., Q.G. and R.M.B. The experiments were performed by T.-H.W. and P.S. T.-H.W. and C.F. developed and carried out the modelling. T.-H.W. and S.A.D. wrote the paper with input, analysis and discussion of the results from all authors. A.M. and S.A.D. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Alireza Marandi or Scott A. Diddams.

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Competing interests

L.L. and A.M. are involved in developing photonic integrated nonlinear circuits at PINC Technologies Inc. L.L. and A.M. have an equity interest in PINC Technologies Inc. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Wu, TH., Ledezma, L., Fredrick, C. et al. Visible-to-ultraviolet frequency comb generation in lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguides. Nat. Photon. 18, 218–223 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01364-0

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