Measured Anomalous Dispersion, Kerr Comb, and Lasing in Hybrid TeO2-Coated Si3N4 Waveguides

We report measured anomalous dispersion, Kerr comb generation, and lasing on hybrid waveguides based on a standard wafer scale 400-nm Si3N4 coated with the TeO2 film. The use of thin Si3N4 ensures reduced stress and film crack and therefore fabrication of scalable and high yield waveguides through conventional CMOS process. On the other hand, the highly nonlinear TeO2 film is added to enhance nonlinearity and engineer waveguide dispersion while also acting as a host of rare-earth dopants for amplification and lasing. Experimental results are presented showing that the normal dispersion of 400 nm-thick Si3N4 waveguides can be engineered to anomalous by adding the TeO2 film. For a 1.6-μm wide, 500 μm bend radius ring resonator with a 424-nm thick TeO2 coating, dispersion values of ~25 and ~78 ps/nm•km was measured at 1552 nm for the TE and TM-modes, respectively. Also, by exploiting the rare-earth solubility of the TeO2 film and depositing an Er-doped TeO2 coating, a microdisk laser was observed at pump power of 12 mW. These results show a promising route to potentially monolithic integration of linear, nonlinear and active functionalities in a single photonic chip.