An Integrated Ultralow Noise Spiral Interferometric Laser

Abstract

Photonic integration offers the potential to bring complex high-performance optical systems to the form factor of a compact semiconductor chip. However, the range of system functions accessible critically depends on the extent to which free-space and fiber components can be made integrable. The ultralow-expansion cavity-stabilized laser$-$often used in precision metrology, high-resolution sensors, and advanced systems in atomic physics$-$is one component that currently has no direct parallel on chip. Lasers stabilized to photonically-integrated resonators exist, but exhibit considerably higher frequency noise and are accompanied by large levels of frequency drift. We demonstrate here a new architecture for an ultranarrow linewidth integrated laser based on stabilization to a sinusoidal fringe of an interferometer having a long 25-m unbalanced delay line. Our interferometric laser not only advances the state-of-the-art for on-chip lasers, but we in addition introduce an amplitude locking scheme that greatly suppresses the laser's long-term frequency wander. We achieve a record on-chip fractional frequency noise of $5.6 \times 10^{-14}$, corresponding to a linewidth of 12 Hz centered at 1348 nm. To showcase the utility of this laser, we divide the optical carrier to microwave frequencies, demonstrating the ability to outperform state-of-the-art quartz crystal oscillators by 15 dB or more.