Invited Paper NS+AN+EM+MN+MP+RM-TuM1
Parametric Nonlinear Interactions in Nanofabricated Silicon-based Photonics

Tuesday, October 23, 2018, 8:00 am, Room 102B

High optical confinement waveguides on integrated platforms enable nonlinear optical interactions with low power levels. The third-order nonlinear susceptibility, a modification of a material’s permittivity due to an applied optical field, exists in all materials, and is an intensity-dependent process leading to third-order parametric effects. Harnessing the high optical intensities enabled by high confinement waveguides allows standard semiconductor materials to become power-efficient parametric nonlinear optical devices that can operate with powers in the mW range. The optical confinement of a waveguide also enables control over the waveguide’s dispersion, allowing for phase-matching of the parametric processes thereby improving its operating bandwidth. Using standard nanofabrication techniques, integrated photonic devices can be tailored in both geometry at the nanoscale, and in magnitude of their third-order susceptibility through modification of their material properties. In this talk, we will discuss a variety of parametric nonlinear optical demonstrations in silicon-based waveguides including optical parametric amplification and oscillation, phase-sensitive amplification, and frequency conversion and comb generation. Furthermore, we will discuss these devices for a variety of applications including optical signal processing, spectroscopy, and security.