April 29, 2022

Title: Nonlinear Photonics Based on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate

 

Speaker: Prof. Mengjie Yu, 

                Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California

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Abstract: Lithium niobate (LN) is an excellent nonlinear photonic material due to its large electro-optic (EO) coefficient, second order (χ^((2) )) and Kerr (χ^((3))) nonlinearity, along with a wide optical transparency window. Thanks to the recent advances in nanofabrication technology, monolithic LN waveguides with high optical confinement and ultralow linear loss has been achieved, which was critical to the success of the silicon-based platform in the past decade. Highly efficient and controllable light-matter interactions can be achieved using optical, electrical, or mechanical waves at extremely compact footprints. In this talk, I will review our recent developments of thin-film LN nonlinear devices for χ^((2)) and χ^((3))-based parametric frequency conversion, high power EO frequency combs, femtosecond pulse synthesis and spectral-shaping of single photons. Combination of multiple nonlinearities of LN unlocks ultrabroadband electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to mid-infrared. Lastly, I will discuss the potential of LN photonic platform for scaling up and accelerating classical and quantum technologies in sensing, photonic computing, and communication networks.