A kilometer-scale low-loss capability on chip photonics would meaningfully boost performance in ring-based light circulation, impacting both scientific research and data transmission.

The platform matches the best silicon nitride in the near‑IR, but in the visible it delivers up to twenty times lower loss, approaching optical‑fiber levels of performance.

Key devices demonstrated include ring resonators, lasers, and nonlinear resonators, showing the platform’s broad versatility across photonic components.

The material can be reflowed at relatively low temperatures to create atomically smooth surfaces, drastically reducing scattering and boosting coherence, with lasers on this platform achieving more than a 100-fold improvement in coherence.

Waves are laid out in spirals on 8‑ and 12‑inch wafers to maximize optical path length within a tiny footprint, enabling high-performance photonic integrated circuits.

Applications span optical clocks, gyroscopes, atom-based sensors, quantum computing, and AI data-center communications due to the dramatically lower loss and higher coherence at chip scale.

The work is published in Nature, led by Hao-Jing Chen and Kellan Colburn in Kerry Vahala’s lab, with support from DARPA, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Kavli Institute.

Caltech researchers printed optical circuits from germano-silicate—the same material as optical fiber—directly onto silicon wafers, achieving fiber-like ultralow loss across visible to near‑IR wavelengths.