Numerical investigation into the output performance of a silicon Raman laser based on a silicon-on-insulator waveguide pumped by 2 µm lasers

Abstract

We numerically analyze the characteristics of a mid-infrared continuous-wave (CW) Raman laser in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonics circuits including standing-cavity and ring resonator configurations, which are pumped by lasers at 2 µm. The dependence of cascaded Raman laser performance on the cavity length, effective free carrier lifetime, and the power transmission is investigated for the optimization of CW Raman silicon standing-cavity lasers. In addition, the mid-infrared Raman laser in the ring resonator is also presented under different parameters; in particular, the coupling strengths between the bus waveguide and the ring resonator for both the pump and Raman lasers are crucial to the laser performance. The numerical simulation results also reveal that the position of the coupler for extracting the Raman light from the ring resonator plays an important role in optimizing the structures of such Raman lasers.