Investigation of FWM in dispersion-engineered GaInP photonic crystal waveguides

Kevin Lengle,Alfredo De Rossi,Marcia Costa E Silva,Pierre Colman,Jean-Claude Simon,Sylvain Combrie,Laurent Bramerie,Mathilde Gay,Sebastien Lobo

doi:10.1364/oe.20.016154

Abstract

We report on the investigation of four-wave mixing (FWM) in a long (1.3 mm) dispersion-engineered Gallium Indium Phosphide (GaInP) photonic crystal (PhC) waveguide. A comparison with a non-engineered design is made with respect to measured FWM efficiency maps. A striking different response is observed, in terms of dependence on the pump wavelength and the spectral detuning. The benefits and the limitations of both structures are discussed, in particular the trade-off between slow-light enhancement of the FWM efficiency and the conversion bandwidth. The time-resolved parametric conversion of short pulses at 10 GHz is also shown. Finally, the transmission capability of a 40 Gbit/s RZ signal is assessed through bit-error rate measurements, revealing error-free operation with only 1dB penalty.

Highlights

IntroductionIn the context of a growing need for high-speed transmissions with at the same time the will of reducing energy consumption in telecommunications networks, data-signal processing at the optical level can help significantly to achieve these goals, leading to a simplification of the future telecommunication networks
In the context of a growing need for high-speed transmissions with at the same time the will of reducing energy consumption in telecommunications networks, data-signal processing at the optical level can help significantly to achieve these goals, leading to a simplification of the future telecommunication networks.Over the last years there has been a growing interest on photonic crystals (PhC) to perform optical functions, such as pulse compression [1], all-optical storage [2,3] and alloptical switching [4] owing to their small footprint and high nonlinearity
We report on the investigation of four-wave mixing (FWM) in a long (1.3 mm) dispersion-engineered Gallium Indium Phosphide (GaInP) photonic crystal (PhC) waveguide

Summary

Introduction

In the context of a growing need for high-speed transmissions with at the same time the will of reducing energy consumption in telecommunications networks, data-signal processing at the optical level can help significantly to achieve these goals, leading to a simplification of the future telecommunication networks. PhC waveguides based on two-photon absorption (TPA)-free materials, enabling efficient nonlinearity at high optical power propagation, have recently been conceived [20] and studied [21,22]. Two self-standing membrane, single line defect waveguides are compared Both structures have a triangular lattice of holes with the same parameters but the second one is dispersion-engineered by the anti-symmetric translation of the first rows closest to the core, in order to enhance the group index and control the dispersion. Experimental FWM efficiency maps (as a function of pump wavelength and spectral detuning dependence) are investigated for the first time in two GaInP PhC waveguides with different design.

Self-standing membrane structure

Time-resolved measurements

Experimental setup for FWM efficiency maps

FWM efficiency maps

Conclusion