ABSTRACT: Lasers with hertz-level linewidths on timescales up to seconds are critical for precision metrology, timekeeping, and manipulation of quantum systems. Such frequency stability typically relies on bulk-optic lasers and reference cavities, where increased size is leveraged to improve noise performance, but with the trade-off of cost, hand assembly, and limited application environments. On the other hand, planar waveguide lasers and cavities exploit the benefits of CMOS scalability, but are fundamentally limited from achieving hertz-level linewidths at longer times by stochastic noise and thermal sensitivity inherent to the waveguide medium. These physical limits have inhibited the development of compact laser systems with frequency noise required for portable optical clocks that have performance well beyond conventional microwave counterparts. We demonstrated a compact, high-coherence laser system at 1548 nm with a 1 s integrated linewidth of 1.1 Hz and fractional frequency instability less than 10-14 from 1 ms to 1 s. The frequency noise at 1 Hz offset is suppressed by 11 orders of magnitude from that of the free-running diode laser down to the cavity thermal noise limit near 1 Hz2/Hz, decreasing to 10-3 Hz2/Hz at 4 kHz offset. Integration of lasers with microcombs with bright and dark pulses will be described.  

Biography: John Bowers is Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests are primarily concerned with silicon photonics, optoelectronic devices, optical switching and transparent optical networks and quantum dot lasers. Bowers received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and then worked for AT&T Bell Laboratories before joining UCSB.  Bowers is a fellow of the IEEE, OSA and the American Physical Society, and a recipient of the IEEE Photonics Award, OSA/IEEE Tyndall Award, the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award and the South Coast Business and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors.

This seminar is sponsored by the Department of Applied Physics and the Ginzton Laboratory.