Wafer-scale integration of photonic integrated circuits and atomic vapor cells

Atom-based technologies have played a central role in both fundamental research and application-driven developments. For example, devices such as atomic clocks and magnetometers are essential for precision time-keeping, navigation, and sensing. However, many of these demonstrations remain confined to laboratory settings due to their reliance on bulky equipment and centimeter-scale atomic vapor cells. In recent years, significant efforts have been made to miniaturize these vapor cells to enable field-deployable systems. Yet, integrating these cells with the necessary photonic components remains a complex and non-scalable process. To address this challenge, we have introduced the atomic-cladded waveguide (ACWG) architecture, which enables the integration of atomic and photonic functions on the same chip. While the ACWG concept provides a significant step forward toward integration, there is still a significant gap related to wafer scale manufacturability. In particular, previous demonstrations of atomic–photonic integration have relied on manual assembly of vapor cells onto single chips, restricting miniaturization, manufacturability, and thermal robustness. To revolutionize manufacturability of these devices, we hereby demonstrate our new generation of ACWG devices that overcomes these constraints. The approach is based on wafer bonding of a silicon wafer – consisting of multiple photonic chips to a glass wafer with pre-etched atomic chambers. This wafer-scale process yields multiple miniaturized integrated photonic–atomic chips in a single batch. The bonded devices operate reliably at elevated temperatures over an extended period of time, allowing higher atomic densities to be used. The fabrication method consists of well-defined, repeatable steps, paving the way for scalable production of mature integrated photonic–atomic systems for next-generation sensing, metrology, and quantum technologies, inspired by commercial complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor-based processes.