Low-loss hybrid germanium-on-zinc selenide waveguides in the longwave infrared.

The longwave infrared (LWIR) range, which spans from 6 µm to 14 µm, is appealing for sensing due to strong molecular fingerprints in this range. However, the limited availability of low-loss materials that can provide higher-index waveguiding and lower-index cladding in the LWIR range presents challenges for integrated photonics. In this work, we introduce a low-loss germanium-on-zinc selenide (GOZ) platform that could serve as a versatile platform for nanophotonics in the LWIR. By bonding high-quality thin-film germanium (Ge) to a zinc selenide (ZnSe) substrate, we demonstrate transparency from 2 µm to 14 µm and optical losses of just 1 cm at 7.8 µm. Our results demonstrate that hybrid photonic platforms could be invaluable for overcoming the losses of epitaxially grown materials and could enable a wide range of future quantum and nonlinear photonics.