A 1 Hz Linewidth on a Chip: OEwaves’ Role in Ultra-Stable Laser Innovation

Pushing Boundaries: 1-Hz Linewidth Laser on a Chip

‍

A collaborative team from UCSB, NIST, JILA, Yale, and Anello Photonics has demonstrated a breakthrough: a laser system with an integrated linewidth of ~1.1 Hz over 1 second and fractional frequency instability below 10⁻¹⁴. The system achieves this performance while using planar, chip-scale components including an extended distributed Bragg reflector (E-DBR) laser, a high-Q Si₃N₄ spiral resonator for self-injection locking, and a microfabricated vacuum-gap reference cavity with micromirrors.

‍

Key innovations in the design include:

‍

• Reducing frequency noise by orders of magnitude using self-injection locking and later locking to a high-finesse cavity, until the system is limited by thermal noise of the cavity itself.
• Defining nearly all critical components via lithographic processes (chip-scale, wafer-scale) which holds promise for high-volume production and portability.

‍

This work represents a major step toward making ultra-low noise, high-stability lasers more compact and usable outside lab settings — for optical clocks, navigation, portable metrology, radar, and communications.

‍

Read the full article here.