Group-velocity-dispersion engineering of tantala integrated photonics.

Designing integrated photonics, especially to leverage Kerr-nonlinear optics, requires accurate and precise knowledge of the refractive index across the visible to infrared spectral ranges. Tantala () is an emerging material platform for integrated photonics and nanophotonics that offers broadband ultralow loss, moderately high nonlinearity, and advantages for scalable and heterogeneous integration. We present refractive index measurements on a thin film of tantala, and we explore the efficacy of this data for group-velocity-dispersion (GVD) engineering with waveguide and ring-resonator devices.

Nanophotonic tantala waveguides for supercontinuum generation pumped at 1560 nm.

We experimentally demonstrate efficient and broadband supercontinuum generation in nonlinear tantala () waveguides using a 1560 nm femtosecond seed laser. With incident pulse energies as low as 100 pJ, we create spectra spanning up to 1.6 octaves across the visible and infrared.