Silicon on insulator photonic wire waveguides offer tight sub-wavelength confinement of light, high nonlinearities and large and controllable geometrical Oroup Velocity Dispersion (OVD) [1]. Arranging wires in arrays brings about new opportunities for dispersion control. Strongly dispersive coupling between modes of adjacent wires causes substantial and controllable variation of the zero OVD wavelength between different supermodes [2]. This modifies the phase matching conditions for resonant (Cherenkov) radiation [3], which is one of the distinctive features of solitons in waveguides with sign-changing OVD [4].In this work we study theoretically and experimentally spectral broadening and excitation of solitonic supermodes in an array of three coupled silicon wires. Each wire is 220 nm thick, 380 nm wide and 3 mm long.The array is located on the silica glass substrate and surrounded by air. The wall-to-wall separation between the wires is 600 nm . For the chosen dimensions, the zero OVD wavelength of the quasi-TE mode of single wire is located at 1.62 �m. For pulses with the duration of � 100 fs, the dispersion and coupling lengths are matched around the pump wavelength of 1.5�m and are of the order of 1 mm.We model the array by using the set of coupled nonlinear equations for the amplitudes of supermodes Ej (1) where Dj is the dispersion operator ofj-th supermode (j=1,2,3) and rjprS are numerical coefficients. Extending the conventional analysis of Cherenkov radiation to the case of solitonic supermodes, we have found that, depending on the input conditions, up to five resonances can be observed [3]. Different patterns of resonances serve as unique "fingerprints" to different solitonic supermodes -thus allowing detection of solitonic supermodes by analyzing output spectra. Cherenkov radiation by solitonic supermodes make a significant contribution to the observed substantial and asymmetric spectral broadening from single-wire and narrow-band pump, see Fig. 1. We have used 120 fs pulses at 1.54 �m, the pump spot diameter illuminating the array is estimated at 1.45 �m. The output spectra are sensitive to the position of pump across the array face. As we shift the input pulse from the edge to the central wire, we observe a noticeable gap in the output spectrum between 1.7�m and 1.8�m, cf. selected areas in Figs. I(a) and (b). The radiation in this gap is associated with the anti symmetric supermode, which is not excited when the input pulse is focused on the central wire. The predicted changes in the output spectrum with variation of the input conditions have been confirmed in our experiments, see Figs. l(c) and (d). Our results pave the way for future research into frequency conversion and switching applications using spatio-temporal solitonic effects in periodic nanostructures.> a.. CIlFig. 1 Numerical (a,b) and experimentally measured (c,d) output spectra from the edge wire as functions of the input average power. Initial excitation is localized in the edge (a,c) or central (b,d) wire. References[I) R. M. Osgood ...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.