Phys.org April 16, 2021
Researchers in Switzerland have developed a new technology for building silicon nitride integrated photonic circuits with record low optical losses and small footprints. They used Damascene process to make integrated circuits of optical losses of only 1 dB/m. Such low loss significantly reduces the power budget for building chip-scale optical frequency combs (“microcombs”), used in applications like coherent optical transceivers, low-noise microwave synthesizers, LiDAR, neuromorphic computing, and even optical atomic clocks. The team used the new technology to develop meter-long waveguides on 5×5 mm2 chips and high-quality-factor microresonators. They also report high fabrication yield, which is essential for scaling up to industrial production…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Comparison of ultralow-loss linear and nonlinear Si3N4 platforms with state-of-the-art silicon, InP and AlGaAs platforms. Credit: Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 2236 (2021)Â