Visible Integrated Photonics with Tantalum Pentoxide

Abstract: Hybrid photonic platforms are essential for integrating light sources with scalable on-chip optical circuits. Here, we demonstrate that tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) on insulator is a promising photonic material for such applications, supporting high-Q resonator architectures operating in the visible spectral range. The deposition process of Ta2O5 was optimized by examining the influence of oxygen flow on film stoichiometry during electron beam evaporation. High quality ring resonators (Q>10000) coupled to bus waveguides were fabricated and measured. Furthermore, we realised a hybrid Ta2O5 - hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) photonic device in which ensembles of B-centre defects were generated and preserved throughout fabrication. These results establish a robust material framework for the integration of defect-based quantum emitters with low-loss dielectric photonics.