Columbia Technology Ventures

Ultralow loss multimode waveguides for chip-based photonic devices

This technology is a method of mitigating propagation losses in high confinement, multimode waveguides.

Unmet Need: High confinement waveguides for compact, broadband optical frequency combs

Chip-based nonlinear photonics applications require robust and compact broadband optical frequency combs. High confinement waveguides are a key component of optical frequency combs. Mitigating propagation losses in high confinement waveguides is critical to achieving low power, broadband frequency combs.

The Technology: Compact, ultralow loss, high confinement waveguide

Using a highly multimode structure to shape the fundamental mode, this waveguide design reduces overlap between the fundamental and transverse modes. The reduced overlap alleviates the need for complex fabrication processes and can easily be applied to a variety of materials to create ultralow loss waveguides for low-power, wide-broadband optical frequency combs. This method of improving chip-based photonic devices has applications in optical coherence tomography, high-speed communications, and advanced scientific instrumentation.

By propagating a single mode in multimode microresonators, this technology achieves intrinsic quality factors (Q) of 31.8 ± 4.4 million.

Applications:

  • Optical coherence tomography
  • On-chip optical clocks
  • High-speed communications
  • Microresonator-based comb spectroscopy
  • Frequency metrology
  • Astrocombs
  • Microfluidic applications
  • Nanophotonic devices

Advantages:

  • Large intrinsic quality factor
  • Broadband frequency range (126 THz)
  • Ultralow propagation loss (< 1 dB/m)
  • Can be applied to variety of waveguide materials

Lead Inventor:

Michal Lipson, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

Related Publications:

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