Femtosecond pulse amplification on a chip

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 8109 - 8
• Main Authors: Gaafar, Mahmoud A, Ludwig, Markus, Wang, Kai, Wildi, Thibault, Voumard, Thibault, Sinobad, Milan, Lorenzen, Jan, Francis, Henry, Carreira, Jose, Zhang, Shuangyou, Bi, Toby, Del'Haye, Pascal, Geiselmann, Michael, Singh, Neetesh, Kärtner, Franz X, Garcia-Blanco, Sonia M, Herr, Tobias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 16.09.2024; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Amplification; Autonomous navigation; Biology; Broadband; Chemical perception; Chemical synthesis; Chemoreception; Femtosecond pulsed lasers; Femtosecond pulses; Lasers; Medical imaging; Photonics; Physics; Propagation; Pulse duration; Rare earth elements; Semiconductors; Silicon nitride; Waveguides
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52057-3

Femtosecond laser pulses enable the synthesis of light across the electromagnetic spectrum and provide access to ultrafast phenomena in physics, biology, and chemistry. Chip-integration of femtosecond technology could revolutionize applications such as point-of-care diagnostics, bio-medical imaging, portable chemical sensing, or autonomous navigation. However, current chip-integrated pulse sources lack the required peak power, and on-chip amplification of femtosecond pulses has been an unresolved challenge. Here, addressing this challenge, we report  >50-fold amplification of 1 GHz-repetition-rate chirped femtosecond pulses in a CMOS-compatible photonic chip to 800 W peak power with 116 fs pulse duration. This power level is 2-3 orders of magnitude higher compared to those in previously demonstrated on-chip pulse sources and can provide the power needed to address key applications. To achieve this, detrimental nonlinear effects are mitigated through all-normal dispersion, large mode-area and rare-earth-doped gain waveguides. These results offer a pathway to chip-integrated femtosecond technology with peak power levels characteristic of table-top sources.