Abstract
Brillouin nonlinearities—which result from coupling between photons and acoustic phonons—are exceedingly weak in conventional nanophotonic silicon waveguides. Only recently have Brillouin interactions been transformed into the strongest and most tailorable nonlinear interactions in silicon using a new class of optomechanical waveguides that control both light and sound. In this paper, we use a multi-mode optomechanical waveguide to create stimulated Brillouin scattering between light-fields guided in distinct spatial modes of an integrated waveguide for the first time. This interaction, termed stimulated inter-modal Brillouin scattering, decouples Stokes and anti-Stokes processes to enable single-sideband amplification and dynamics that permit near-unity power conversion. Using integrated mode multiplexers to address separate optical modes, we show that circulators and narrowband filters are not necessary to separate pump and signal waves. We also demonstrate net optical amplification and Brillouin energy transfer as the basis for flexible on-chip light sources, amplifiers, nonreciprocal devices and signal-processing technologies.
Highlights
Brillouin nonlinearities—which result from coupling between photons and acoustic phonons— are exceedingly weak in conventional nanophotonic silicon waveguides
This system consists of a multi-mode hybrid photonic-phononic waveguide that is interfaced with two integrated mode multiplexers labelled M1 and M2
We have shown that this type of on-chip Brillouin scattering produces dispersive symmetry breaking, net optical amplification and appreciable mode conversion
Summary
Brillouin nonlinearities—which result from coupling between photons and acoustic phonons— are exceedingly weak in conventional nanophotonic silicon waveguides. We use a multi-mode optomechanical waveguide to create stimulated Brillouin scattering between light-fields guided in distinct spatial modes of an integrated waveguide for the first time This interaction, termed stimulated inter-modal Brillouin scattering, decouples Stokes and anti-Stokes processes to enable single-sideband amplification and dynamics that permit near-unity power conversion. Through FSBS, phonons mediate coupling between co-propagating light fields that are guided in the same optical mode This interaction produces very strong optical nonlinearities (B104 times larger than in silica fibres)[10,11], enabling large net amplification[13] and cascaded energy transfer. Within multi-mode optomechanical waveguides it is possible to create phonon-mediated coupling between light fields guided in distinct spatial modes This process, termed stimulated inter-modal Brillouin scattering (SIMS), effectively decouples the Stokes and anti-Stokes processes, enabling singlesideband gain and powerful nonlinear dynamics that differ from those of conventional forward- and backward-SBS processes. Many others[1,4,6,9,18,19,20,21,22,23,24] become available on a silicon chip if engineerable forms of SIMS can be created
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