Abstract
We design, fabricate and test an integrated silicon photonics chip for inter-modal four wave mixing, whose phase-matching relays on the modal dispersions of different waveguide modes. This phase-matching technique allows for tunable and broadband wavelength conversion and generation. We demonstrate that idler and signal photons can be generated with 800 nm spectral distance in between. We measure several inter-modal combinations, with up to the third order mode involvement. We demonstrate a maximum conversion efficiency of -12.4 dB from 1468.5 nm to 1641.1 nm with a bandwidth of 11 nm. We also prove the high and broadband tunability of the generated signal by scanning the pump wavelength when the signal wavelength is fixed. All these features make the inter-modal four wave mixing a viable solution for all optical processing in the near as well as in the mid infrared and for quantum applications.
Highlights
Nowadays, silicon photonics is a viable technique to satisfy the demand of high speed communication and high frequency computing
In order to compare the effect of different modal combinations on fjqlm, we report in Table 1 the normalized mode field overlap fjnqolmrm = fjqlm/f1111 and the corresponding normalized efficiency ηjnqolmrm = ηjqlm/η1111 for various modal combinations in a rib waveguide with w = 2 μm, h = 300 nm, hs = 190 nm, hclad = 900 nm, and hsub = 2 μm [see Figure 1 the meaning of the different parameters]. fjnqolmrm and ηjnqolmrm have been calculated with all the modes at a similar wavelength of 1.55 μm
With this experimental configuration we explored different inter-modal combinations, showing the waveguide width dependence of the four wave mixing (FWM)
Summary
Silicon photonics is a viable technique to satisfy the demand of high speed communication and high frequency computing. In order to deal with the waveguide modes non-linear optics is used, which enables all optical operations like wavelength conversion and switching In this framework, an interesting approach is the use of inter-modal four wave mixing (FWM) [3]. The increased flexibility provided by the waveguide modes allows broadband and tunable wavelength conversion This has been already demonstrated in a multimode silicon waveguide [6], with the generated idler photons spanning from 1,200 to 1,500 nm. Due to its broadband generation, inter-modal FWM can be used as an on-chip source of MIR photons [13]. With respect to the first demonstration of inter-modal FWM on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform, where simple multimode waveguides have been used [6], in this work we report the results obtained with an optimized design where the different modes are handled directly on the chip.
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