Silicon-based technology brings fiber-like efficiency to a chip, showing strong potential for quantum computers, biomedical imaging and augmented reality
Researchers have created a new photonic chip technology that guides light nearly as efficiently as optical fiber. By bringing fiber-like performance onto a silicon chip, they demonstrate that light can be precisely controlled across a broad spectrum — from violet to telecom wavelengths — with minimal loss and exceptional stability.
Kellan Colburn from the California Institute of Technology will present this research at the 2026 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC), the world’s largest annual gathering for optical networking and communications professionals, which will take place 15 March – 19 March 2026 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“By bringing fiber-like performance across a broad spectral range onto a chip, this new technology could be used to build compact photonic quantum computers and quantum networks, reduce the energy cost of server infrastructure, improve biomedical imaging systems that use visible light, support lightweight photonic engines for augmented-reality displays and enable portable precision timing and navigation systems,” said Colburn.
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Translating technologies for superior performance
“Many emerging technologies rely on stable, multi-wavelength light sources operating in the visible spectrum, such as on-chip atom/ion control,” said Hao-Jing Chen, co-first author of the work. “However, this has been difficult to achieve on a chip because losses rise dramatically at shorter wavelengths.”
To overcome this challenge, the researchers developed a CMOS-compatible process that allows germanium-doped silica to be fabricated using semiconductor manufacturing techniques. This material is commonly used to make optical fiber because of its exceptionally low absorption.
The new platform provides significantly lower optical loss across visible and near-infrared wavelengths while also supporting large optical mode areas on a chip, which allows near-perfect index and size matching between the chip and an optical fiber. The large optical mode areas also reduce the effects of thermal noise, allowing significantly better laser coherence within the circuit.
“Our work demonstrates a clear pathway for translating technologies traditionally confined to optical fiber into scalable semiconductor manufacturing platforms,” said Colburn. “Over time, this could translate into smaller medical devices, more accurate navigation without GPS, faster communications and new consumer technologies built on photonic chips.”
A powerful platform for the future
To precisely measure the optical loss of the new material platform, the researchers used it to fabricate on-chip optical ring resonators. The devices achieved extremely high optical quality factors that exceeded 180 million at every measured wavelength. This corresponds to waveguide losses below 0.1 dB/m in the telecom band.
“This work demonstrates how ultralow loss-germanosilica integrated circuits enable fiber-class waveguide performance on chip,” said OFC program chair Takashi Matsui from NTT Inc. in Japan. “Achieving sub-dB/m loss and ultrahigh-Q resonators across 458 to 1550 nm marks a significant step toward advanced integrated platforms for precision and quantum photonics.”
The researchers also used the new platform to build various complex photonic systems, including dispersion-engineered single-ring soliton microcombs; Brillouin lasers that are enhanced by simultaneous optical and acoustic confinement; and self-injection-locked semiconductor lasers with Hertz-level linewidths.
They also showed that the new platform enabled a more than 20dB (100x) increase in coherence of self-injection locked lasers compared to previous record results at blue, green and red wavelengths. In this demonstration, the researchers utilized a device only a few millimeters across to transform low-cost multimode diode lasers with linewidths exceeding 100 GHz into single-mode lasers with linewidths on the order of 10 Hz.
This combination of low-cost lasers with a foundry-compatible chip-based platform promises a new class of compact ultra-narrow linewidth lasers at mass production scale, which would revolutionize a number of different fields relying on visible light lasers, according to the researchers.
The researchers are now working to improve the platform by further reducing light loss and using it to integrate additional active components, such as lasers, amplifiers and electro-optic devices, directly onto the chip. They also want to use the platform to make full photonic systems for portable clocks, quantum technologies and sensing applications.
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