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Integrated photonics

Integrated titanium:sapphire laser

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 290–291 (2023)Cite this article

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The Ti:Sa laser, a workhorse of any optics laboratory, is typically a bench-top system. A hybrid integration approach now enables a low-threshold photonic-circuit-integrated Ti:Sa laser the size of a fingernail.

Lasers based on titanium-doped sapphire (Ti:Sa) were invented in 1982 and have since revolutionized science1. They have enabled new methods for biomedical imaging2, physics at attosecond timescales, and have been instrumental in the creation and rapid rise of optical frequency combs, revolutionizing precision measurement and spectroscopy3. These lasers offer strong amplification over a broad range of wavelengths from 700 nm in the visible to 1,080 nm in near infrared, and are well suited to high-power ultrashort pulse generation and amplification. Such characteristics and applications coupled with its relative simplicity and modest cost have made the Ti:Sa laser a fixture in almost every physics laboratory around the world.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the chip-integrated Ti:Sa laser.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre (InPAC), School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Arnan Mitchell

  2. Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem

Authors
  1. Arnan Mitchell
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  2. Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem
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Correspondence to Arnan Mitchell.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Mitchell, A., Ebendorff-Heidepriem, H. Integrated titanium:sapphire laser. Nat. Photon. 17, 290–291 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01175-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01175-3

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