On-chip erbium-doped lithium niobate waveguide amplifiers [Invited]

Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), as an emerging and promising optical integration platform, faces shortages of on-chip active devices including lasers and amplifiers. Here, we report the fabrication of on-chip erbium-doped LNOI waveguide amplifiers based on electron beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching. A net internal gain of ~30 dB/cm in the communication band was achieved in the fabricated waveguide amplifiers under the pump of a 974 nm continuous laser. This work develops new active devices on LNOI and may promote the development of LNOI integrated photonics.