Nanoscale inhomogeneity is a major barrier to achieving high nonlinear efficiency in nanophotonic lithium-niobate waveguides. Using adapted poling in the waveguide — to circumvent the inhomogeneity and restore ideal phase matching — is shown to break through this efficiency limit.
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References
Boes, A. et al. Lithium niobate photonics: Unlocking the electromagnetic spectrum. Science 379, eabj4396 (2023). A review article that presents an overview and the state-of-the-art of TFLN photonics.
Wang, C. et al. Ultrahigh-efficiency wavelength conversion in nanophotonic periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides. Optica 5, 1438–1441 (2018). This paper reports a nonlinear strength for periodically poled TFLN that outperforms conventional lithium niobate crystals.
Rao, A. et al. Actively-monitored periodic-poling in thin-film lithium niobate photonic waveguides with ultrahigh nonlinear conversion efficiency of 4600 %W−1cm−2. Opt. Express 27, 25920–25930 (2019). This paper reports a high value of nonlinear strength from periodically poled TFLN.
Zhao, J. et al. Shallow-etched thin-film lithium niobate waveguides for highly-efficient second-harmonic generation. Opt. Express 28, 19669–19682 (2020). This paper reports a high value of nonlinear efficiency from periodically poled TFLN.
Chen, P.-K., Briggs, I., Hou, S. & Fan, L. Ultra-broadband quadrature squeezing with thin-film lithium niobate nanophotonics. Opt. Lett. 47, 1506–1509 (2022). This paper reports squeezed-light generation from periodically poled TFLN, and was the starting point for our adapted-poling project.
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This is a summary of: Chen, P.-K. et al. Adapted poling to break the nonlinear efficiency limit in nanophotonic lithium niobate waveguides. Nat. Nanotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01525-w (2023).
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High optical nonlinear efficiency achieved by compensating for nanoscale inhomogeneity. Nat. Nanotechnol. 19, 9–10 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01526-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01526-9
