Advancing lasers in silicon photonics

Dai Light: Science & Applications (2023)12:217 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-023-01252-w Official journal of the CIOMP 2047-7538 www.nature.com/lsa RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT Open Access Advancing lasers in silicon photonics Daoxin Dai 1✉ issue: three-dimensional (3D) photonic integration. This technique enables the integration of high-performance lasers and ultra-low-loss waveguides on a silicon PIC, yielding Hertz-linewidth lasers with high resistance to downstream reflections. These lasers have the great potential to advance silicon PICs in numerous applications, particularly those with stringent noise requirements. Furthermore, the 3D structure integrating active and passive components on silicon may unlock the full potential of photonic integration, paving the way for highly robust photonic chips with comprehensive functionality and integrity. Received: 3 August 2023 Accepted: 5 August 2023 1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; Nature 620, 78–85 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06251-w The integration of lasers has long been a significant challenge, impeding advancements in silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Although the majority of applications necessitate lasers, most silicon PICs still need external off-chip lasers, as on-chip lasers have yet to match the performance of discrete counterparts. Additionally, stable laser operation requires adequate isolation from downstream reflections, which can negatively influence the performance; thus, isolators are typically introduced between a laser and a silicon PIC. Now, a group of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, along with collaborators from other institutions, have developed a novel approach to address this Correspondence: Daoxin Dai () 1 State Key Laboratory for Extreme Photonics and Instrumentation, College of Optical Science and Engineering, International Research Center for Advanced Photonics, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, Hangzhou 310058, China © The Author(s) 2023 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.  (...truncated)