IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-58010-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A mid-infrared Brillouin laser using ultra-high-Q on-chip resonators

Author

Listed:
  • Kiyoung Ko

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Daewon Suk

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Dohyeong Kim

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Soobong Park

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Betul Sen

    (Yale University)

  • Dae-Gon Kim

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

  • Yingying Wang

    (Ningbo University)

  • Shixun Dai

    (Ningbo University)

  • Xunsi Wang

    (Ningbo University)

  • Rongping Wang

    (Ningbo University
    Australian National University)

  • Byung Jae Chun

    (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute)

  • Kwang-Hoon Ko

    (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute)

  • Peter T. Rakich

    (Yale University)

  • Duk-Yong Choi

    (Australian National University)

  • Hansuek Lee

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

Abstract

Ultra-high-Q optical resonators have facilitated advancements in on-chip photonics by harnessing nonlinear functionalities. While these breakthroughs, primarily focused on the near-infrared region, have extended interest to longer wavelengths holding importance for molecule science, the absence of ultra-high-Q resonators in this region remains a significant challenge. Here, we have developed on-chip microresonators with a remarkable Q-factor of 38 million at 3.86 μm wavelength, surpassing previous records by over 30 times. Employing innovative fabrication techniques, including spontaneous formation of light-guiding geometries with internal multilayer structures during material deposition, major loss factors, such as airborne-chemical absorption, were investigated and addressed. This allowed us to access the fundamental loss performance demonstrated by chalcogenide glass fibers. Leveraging this resonator, we demonstrated an on-chip Brillouin lasing in the mid-infrared with a 91.9 μW threshold power and an 83.5 Hz Schawlow-Townes linewidth. Our results showcase the effective integration of cavity-enhanced optical nonlinearities into on-chip mid-infrared photonics.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiyoung Ko & Daewon Suk & Dohyeong Kim & Soobong Park & Betul Sen & Dae-Gon Kim & Yingying Wang & Shixun Dai & Xunsi Wang & Rongping Wang & Byung Jae Chun & Kwang-Hoon Ko & Peter T. Rakich & Duk-Yong , 2025. "A mid-infrared Brillouin laser using ultra-high-Q on-chip resonators," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-58010-2
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58010-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58010-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-58010-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Junqiu Liu & Guanhao Huang & Rui Ning Wang & Jijun He & Arslan S. Raja & Tianyi Liu & Nils J. Engelsen & Tobias J. Kippenberg, 2021. "High-yield, wafer-scale fabrication of ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered silicon nitride photonic circuits," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. S. M. Spillane & T. J. Kippenberg & K. J. Vahala, 2002. "Ultralow-threshold Raman laser using a spherical dielectric microcavity," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6872), pages 621-623, February.
    3. Arkadev Roy & Luis Ledezma & Luis Costa & Robert Gray & Ryoto Sekine & Qiushi Guo & Mingchen Liu & Ryan M. Briggs & Alireza Marandi, 2023. "Visible-to-mid-IR tunable frequency comb in nanophotonics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    4. Ben Spaun & P. Bryan Changala & David Patterson & Bryce J. Bjork & Oliver H. Heckl & John M. Doyle & Jun Ye, 2016. "Continuous probing of cold complex molecules with infrared frequency comb spectroscopy," Nature, Nature, vol. 533(7604), pages 517-520, May.
    5. Dingding Ren & Chao Dong & Sadhvikas J. Addamane & David Burghoff, 2022. "High-quality microresonators in the longwave infrared based on native germanium," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    6. Cheng Wang & Mian Zhang & Xi Chen & Maxime Bertrand & Amirhassan Shams-Ansari & Sethumadhavan Chandrasekhar & Peter Winzer & Marko Lončar, 2018. "Integrated lithium niobate electro-optic modulators operating at CMOS-compatible voltages," Nature, Nature, vol. 562(7725), pages 101-104, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mikhail Churaev & Rui Ning Wang & Annina Riedhauser & Viacheslav Snigirev & Terence Blésin & Charles Möhl & Miles H. Anderson & Anat Siddharth & Youri Popoff & Ute Drechsler & Daniele Caimi & Simon Hö, 2023. "A heterogeneously integrated lithium niobate-on-silicon nitride photonic platform," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Shaofu Xu & Jing Wang & Sicheng Yi & Weiwen Zou, 2022. "High-order tensor flow processing using integrated photonic circuits," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Dmitry Kazakov & Theodore P. Letsou & Maximilian Beiser & Yiyang Zhi & Nikola Opačak & Marco Piccardo & Benedikt Schwarz & Federico Capasso, 2024. "Active mid-infrared ring resonators," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Maodong Gao & Qi-Fan Yang & Qing-Xin Ji & Heming Wang & Lue Wu & Boqiang Shen & Junqiu Liu & Guanhao Huang & Lin Chang & Weiqiang Xie & Su-Peng Yu & Scott B. Papp & John E. Bowers & Tobias J. Kippenbe, 2022. "Probing material absorption and optical nonlinearity of integrated photonic materials," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Hsuan-Hao Lu & Karthik V. Myilswamy & Ryan S. Bennink & Suparna Seshadri & Mohammed S. Alshaykh & Junqiu Liu & Tobias J. Kippenberg & Daniel E. Leaird & Andrew M. Weiner & Joseph M. Lukens, 2022. "Bayesian tomography of high-dimensional on-chip biphoton frequency combs with randomized measurements," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Xinyu Ma & Zhaoyu Cai & Chijie Zhuang & Xiangdong Liu & Zhecheng Zhang & Kewei Liu & Bo Cao & Jinliang He & Changxi Yang & Chengying Bao & Rong Zeng, 2024. "Integrated microcavity electric field sensors using Pound-Drever-Hall detection," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    7. Kazuma Taki & Naoki Sekine & Kouhei Watanabe & Yuto Miyatake & Tomohiro Akazawa & Hiroya Sakumoto & Kasidit Toprasertpong & Shinichi Takagi & Mitsuru Takenaka, 2024. "Nonvolatile optical phase shift in ferroelectric hafnium zirconium oxide," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    8. Seou Choi & Yannick Salamin & Charles Roques-Carmes & Rumen Dangovski & Di Luo & Zhuo Chen & Michael Horodynski & Jamison Sloan & Shiekh Zia Uddin & Marin Soljačić, 2024. "Photonic probabilistic machine learning using quantum vacuum noise," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    9. Yaojing Zhang & Keyi Zhong & Xuetong Zhou & Hon Ki Tsang, 2022. "Broadband high-Q multimode silicon concentric racetrack resonators for widely tunable Raman lasers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Chengying Bao & Zhiquan Yuan & Lue Wu & Myoung-Gyun Suh & Heming Wang & Qiang Lin & Kerry J. Vahala, 2021. "Architecture for microcomb-based GHz-mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    11. Zheru Qiu & Neetesh Singh & Yang Liu & Xinru Ji & Rui Ning Wang & Franz X. Kärtner & Tobias Kippenberg, 2025. "Large-scale photonic chip based pulse interleaver for low-noise microwave generation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-7, December.
    12. Dongliang Wang & Yikun Nie & Gaolei Hu & Hon Ki Tsang & Chaoran Huang, 2024. "Ultrafast silicon photonic reservoir computing engine delivering over 200 TOPS," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Markus Ludwig & Furkan Ayhan & Tobias M. Schmidt & Thibault Wildi & Thibault Voumard & Roman Blum & Zhichao Ye & Fuchuan Lei & François Wildi & Francesco Pepe & Mahmoud A. Gaafar & Ewelina Obrzud & Da, 2024. "Ultraviolet astronomical spectrograph calibration with laser frequency combs from nanophotonic lithium niobate waveguides," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    14. Bitao Shen & Haowen Shu & Weiqiang Xie & Ruixuan Chen & Zhi Liu & Zhangfeng Ge & Xuguang Zhang & Yimeng Wang & Yunhao Zhang & Buwen Cheng & Shaohua Yu & Lin Chang & Xingjun Wang, 2023. "Harnessing microcomb-based parallel chaos for random number generation and optical decision making," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    15. Xuan-Kun Li & Jian-Xu Ma & Xiang-Yu Li & Jun-Jie Hu & Chuan-Yang Ding & Feng-Kai Han & Xiao-Min Guo & Xi Tan & Xian-Min Jin, 2024. "High-efficiency reinforcement learning with hybrid architecture photonic integrated circuit," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    16. Xinyi Zhu & Benjamin Crockett & Connor M. L. Rowe & Hao Sun & José Azaña, 2024. "Agile manipulation of the time-frequency distribution of high-speed electromagnetic waves," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    17. Grigory Lihachev & Johann Riemensberger & Wenle Weng & Junqiu Liu & Hao Tian & Anat Siddharth & Viacheslav Snigirev & Vladimir Shadymov & Andrey Voloshin & Rui Ning Wang & Jijun He & Sunil A. Bhave & , 2022. "Low-noise frequency-agile photonic integrated lasers for coherent ranging," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Claudio U. Hail & Morgan Foley & Ruzan Sokhoyan & Lior Michaeli & Harry A. Atwater, 2023. "High quality factor metasurfaces for two-dimensional wavefront manipulation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    19. Chao Xiang & Joel Guo & Warren Jin & Lue Wu & Jonathan Peters & Weiqiang Xie & Lin Chang & Boqiang Shen & Heming Wang & Qi-Fan Yang & David Kinghorn & Mario Paniccia & Kerry J. Vahala & Paul A. Morton, 2021. "High-performance lasers for fully integrated silicon nitride photonics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    20. Liu Qiu & Rishabh Sahu & William Hease & Georg Arnold & Johannes M. Fink, 2023. "Coherent optical control of a superconducting microwave cavity via electro-optical dynamical back-action," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-58010-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.