Abstract
We report the first measurements of spontaneous Raman scattering from silicon waveguides. Using a 1.43 m pump, both forward and backward scattering were measured at 1.54 m from Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) waveguides. From the dependence of the Stokes power vs. pump power, we extract a value of (4.1 +/- 2.5) x 10-7 cm-1 Sr-1 for the Raman scattering efficiency. The results suggest that a silicon optical amplifier is within reach. The strong optical confinement in silicon waveguides is an attractive property as it lowers the pump power required for the onset of Raman scattering. The SiGe material system is also discussed.
Highlights
Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) is believed to be the platform for generation electronic Integrated Circuits (ICs) [1]
In order to establish the fact that the observed emission is from the waveguide and not from bulk silicon, measurements were repeated for different offsets of the waveguide relative to the optical axis
These observations are in excellent agreement with the value of the optical phonon frequency in silicon
Summary
Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) is believed to be the platform for generation electronic Integrated Circuits (ICs) [1]. The main feature in the spontaneous Raman spectrum of silicon corresponds to first-order Raman scattering from zone-center optical phonons [6] It lies at 15.6 THz away from the pump and with a FWHM of 105 GHz at room temperature. The degeneracy between the TO and LO phonons implies a symmetry between the forward and backward scattering efficiencies in a waveguide. The symmetry between the forward and backward geometries is attractive since it allows the re-use of the pump power when it is selectively reflected back into the waveguide. This enhances the prospects for realizing an SRS based silicon amplifier or laser. As a natural extension of this, we discuss the prospects for SRS and realization of a silicon optical amplifier
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