Diamonds are renowned for their exquisite beauty and unrivaled durability, but they also are highly prized by scientists and engineers for their exceptional optical and physical properties.
In a first-of-its-kind demonstration of diamond’s promising technological applications, a team of engineers from Harvard University has developed a new class of Raman laser small enough to operate on a photonic chip. This optical component uses a nanoscale racetrack-shaped diamond resonator to convert one frequency of laser light to an entirely different range of wavelengths, opening up new possibilities for broadband data communications and a host of other applications.
The new proof-of-concept results are published in The Optical Society’s high-impact journal Optica.
“We present the first observation of Raman lasing in a diamond based device integrated onto a silicon chip,” said Vivek Venkataraman, Lončar Laboratory, Harvard University and co-author on the paper. “This is, by far, the lowest operating power diamond Raman laser to date, and the longest wavelength produced in any kind of on-chip Raman laser.”
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Diamond-microresonator based Raman laser design.
a, Energy level diagram of the Raman scattering process
b, Simulated mode profiles of diamond waveguides with width 800 nm and height 700 nm embedded in silica,
c, Scanning-electron-microscopy image of the nano-fabricated diamond racetrack resonators on an SiO2-on-Si substrate before cladding with PECVD silica, showing the bus-waveguidecoupling
region (gap ~ 500 nm) and transition to polymer (SU-8) waveguides for efficient coupling to lensed fibers.
d, Optical micrograph of a diamond racetrack micro-resonator after a PECVD silica layer is deposited with path length ~600 µm and bending radius ~20 µm.
Optica - On-chip diamond Raman laser
Arxiv - On-chip diamond Raman laser
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In a first-of-its-kind demonstration of diamond’s promising technological applications, a team of engineers from Harvard University has developed a new class of Raman laser small enough to operate on a photonic chip. This optical component uses a nanoscale racetrack-shaped diamond resonator to convert one frequency of laser light to an entirely different range of wavelengths, opening up new possibilities for broadband data communications and a host of other applications.
The new proof-of-concept results are published in The Optical Society’s high-impact journal Optica.
“We present the first observation of Raman lasing in a diamond based device integrated onto a silicon chip,” said Vivek Venkataraman, Lončar Laboratory, Harvard University and co-author on the paper. “This is, by far, the lowest operating power diamond Raman laser to date, and the longest wavelength produced in any kind of on-chip Raman laser.”
a, Energy level diagram of the Raman scattering process
b, Simulated mode profiles of diamond waveguides with width 800 nm and height 700 nm embedded in silica,
c, Scanning-electron-microscopy image of the nano-fabricated diamond racetrack resonators on an SiO2-on-Si substrate before cladding with PECVD silica, showing the bus-waveguidecoupling
region (gap ~ 500 nm) and transition to polymer (SU-8) waveguides for efficient coupling to lensed fibers.
d, Optical micrograph of a diamond racetrack micro-resonator after a PECVD silica layer is deposited with path length ~600 µm and bending radius ~20 µm.
Optica - On-chip diamond Raman laser
Arxiv - On-chip diamond Raman laser
Read more »
