Ultralow-threshold neodymium-doped microsphere lasers on a silicon chip

We demonstrate ultralow-threshold neodymium-doped silica microsphere lasers on a silicon chip with lasing wavelengths of ~900 nm and ~1060 nm. Neodymium-doped microsphere cavities are fabricated with a series of doping concentrations using silica sol–gel films. Experimentally, we observe single-mode lasing emissions from the high-Q microsphere cavities with a threshold of as low as 1.2 µW.