Integrated Multi-Color Raman Microlasers with Ultra-Low Pump Levels in Single High-Q Lithium Niobate Microdisks

Integrated Raman microlasers, particularly discrete multi-color lasers which are crucial for extending the emission wavelength range of chip-scale laser sources to much shorter wavelengths, are highly in demand for various spectroscopy, microscopy analysis, and biological detection applications. However, integrated multi-color Raman microlasers have yet to be demonstrated because of the requirement of high-Q microresonators possessing large χ⁽²⁾ nonlinearity, strong Raman phonon branches, and the challenge in the cavity-enhanced multi-photon hyper-Raman scattering parametric process. In this work, integrated multi-color Raman lasers have been demonstrated for the first time at weak pump levels, via the excitation of high-Q (> 6 × 10⁶) phase-matched modes in single thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) microresonators by dispersion engineering. Raman lasing is observed at 1712 nm for a 1547-nm pump threshold power of only 620 µW, representing the state of the art in the TFLN platform. Furthermore, multi-color Raman lasers are realized at discrete wavelengths of 1712, 813, 533, and 406 nm with pump levels as low as 1.60 mW, which is more than two orders of magnitude lower than the current records (i.e., 200 mW) in bulk resonators, allowed by the fulfillment of the requisite conditions consisting of broadband natural phase match, multiple-resonance, and high-Q factors.