Strip loaded waveguide amplifiers based on erbium-doped nanocomposites with 17 dB internal net gain.

We propose a strip loaded amplifier employing SU-8 as the loaded waveguide and nanoparticles (NPs)-polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as the cladding layer. By leveraging the undoped SU-8 loaded waveguide, the polymer waveguide amplifier accomplished remarkably low transmission losses, reaching as low as 1.8 dB/cm at 1530 nm. We prepared NPs-PMMA nanocomposite by utilizing NaLuYF: Er, Yb @NaLuF core-shell nanoparticles, which exhibited a significantly enhanced lifetime of 6.15 ms. An internal net gain of up to 17.7 dB was achieved on a strip loaded waveguide with a length as short as 0.5 cm when the on-chip pump power was 77 mW. Signal enhancement (SE) was measured at different wavelengths, revealing that the strip loaded waveguide exhibited broadband SE ranging from 1510 nm to 1570 nm, covering the C-band. To the best of our knowledge, this work has achieved the highest gain results reported thus far on a polymer matrix and provides an efficient method for optical amplification in passive devices on silicon and SiN platforms, leveraging the ease of integration of polymer materials with diverse photonic platforms.