Four-wave mixing based mid-span phase conjugation using slow light engineered chalcogenide and silicon photonic crystal waveguides

Abstract

Recently, planar photonic crystals (PhCs) have emerged as one possible and flexible platform for integrating various optical components onto the same chip. Of the extraordinary dispersion properties that are exhibited by planar PhC waveguides lies the possibility of significantly reducing the group velocity at which light propagates [1]. Most significantly, combining slow light PhCs with a nonlinear medium enhances all kinds of optical nonlinear processes [2], with the potential for realising compact all-optical nonlinear devices that operate at low power. In addition to providing slow light propagation, PhC waveguides can be further engineered, so that slow light modes can present very low dispersion. A number of approaches have been used to achieve this, for example by slightly modifying the geometry of the PhC waveguide [3] or by using selective liquid infiltration [4]. The possibility of managing the dispersion in PhC waveguides is highly advantageous, as it provides a way to control higher order dispersion parameters in addition to the group velocity for optimizing processes that strongly depend on dispersive characteristics and nonlinearities. In our previous works, we have investigated both numerically [5] and experimentally [6] four-wave mixing (FWM) in short (80 µm) dispersion engineered slow light silicon photonic crystal waveguides. Compared with silicon PhC waveguides, chalcogenide waveguides do not suffer from two photon absorption (TPA) and free carrier absorption (FCA). Therefore, the high nonlinearity of chalcogenide glass and merging it with slow light in photonic crystals can potentially be used to make a very compact GVD and SPM compensation device. Mid-span phase conjugation is a technique that can compensate for both GVD and SPM, thereby allowing higher power transmission with fewer amplifiers.