We demonstrate single-mode microdisk lasers in the telecom band with ultralow thresholds on erbium-ytterbium co-doped thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN). The active microdisk was fabricated with high-Q factors by photolithography-assisted chemomechanical etching. Thanks to the erbium-ytterbium co-doping providing high optical gain, the ultralow loss nanostructuring, and the excitation of high-Q coherent polygon modes, which suppresses multimode lasing and allows high spatial mode overlap between pump and lasing modes, single-mode laser emission operating at 1530 nm wavelength was observed with an ultralow threshold, under a 980-nm-band optical pump. The threshold was measured as low as 1 µW, which is one order of magnitude smaller than the best results previously reported in single-mode active TFLN microlasers. The conversion efficiency reaches 4.06 × 10^-3, which is also the highest value reported in single-mode active TFLN microlasers.

Single-frequency ultranarrow linewidth on-chip microlasers with a fast wavelength tunability play a game-changing role in a broad spectrum of applications ranging from coherent communication, light detection and ranging, to metrology and sensing. Design and fabrication of such light sources remain a challenge due to the difficulties in making a laser cavity that has an ultrahigh optical quality (Q) factor and supports only a single lasing frequency simultaneously. Here, we demonstrate a unique single-frequency ultranarrow linewidth lasing mechanism on an erbium ion-doped lithium niobate (LN) microdisk through simultaneous excitation of high-Q polygon modes at both pump and laser wavelengths. As the polygon modes are sparse within the optical gain bandwidth compared with the whispering gallery mode counterpart, while their Q factors (above 10 million) are even higher due to the significantly reduced scattering on their propagation paths, single-frequency lasing with a linewidth as narrow as 322 Hz is observed. The measured linewidth is three orders of magnitude narrower than the previous record in on-chip LN microlasers. Finally, enabled by the strong linear electro-optic effect of LN, real-time electro-optical tuning of the microlaser with a high tuning efficiency of ∼50 pm / 100 V is demonstrated.

We demonstrate integrated lithium niobate (LN) microring resonators with Q factors close to the intrinsic material absorption limit of LN. The microrings are fabricated on pristine LN thin-film wafers thinned from LN bulk via chemo-mechanical etching without ion slicing and ion etching. A record-high Q factor up to 108 at the wavelength of 1550 nm is achieved because of the ultra-smooth interface of the microrings and the absence of ion-induced lattice damage, indicating an ultra-low waveguide propagation loss of ∼0.0034dB/cm. The ultra-high Q microrings will pave the way for integrated quantum light source, frequency comb generation, and nonlinear optical processes.