Analysis of Four-Wave Mixing in Silicon Nitride Waveguides Integrated With 2D Layered Graphene Oxide Films

Abstract

We theoretically investigate and optimize four-wave mixing (FWM) in silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides integrated with 2D layered graphene oxide (GO) films. Based on extensive previous measurements of the material parameters of the GO films, we perform detailed analysis on the influence of device parameters including waveguide geometry, GO film thickness, length, and coating position, on the FWM conversion efficiency (CE) and conversion bandwidth (CB). The influence of dispersion and photo-thermal changes in the GO films is also discussed. Owing to the strong mode overlap between the SiN waveguides and the highly nonlinear GO films, FWM in the hybrid waveguides can be significantly enhanced. We obtain good agreement with previous experimental results and show that by optimizing the device parameters to balance the trade-off between Kerr nonlinearity and loss, the FWM CE can be improved by as much as ∼20.7 dB and the FWM CB can be increased by ∼4.4 folds, relative to the uncoated waveguides. These results highlight the significantly enhanced FWM performance that can be achieved in SiN waveguides by integrating 2D layered GO films.