A broadband, quasi-continuous, mid-infrared supercontinuum generated in a chalcogenide glass waveguide

Abstract

The production of a broadband supercontinuum spanning from 1.8 μm to >7.5 μm is reported which was created by pumping a chalcogenide glass waveguide with ≈320 fs pulses at 4 μm. The total power was ≈20 mW and the source brightness was > ×100 that of current synchrotrons. This source promises to be an excellent laboratory tool for infrared microspectroscopy. 2000 4000 6000 8000 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 Wavelength (nm) Relative power (dB) 3260W 1640W 815W 450W 100W

Mid-infrared integrated photonics on silicon: a perspective

“…The recently demonstrated suspended Ge membrane devices hold the potential to fully utilize the broad transparency band of Ge, although optical functions of these devices at >3-μm wavelength are yet to be realized [29,30]. Infrared-transparent chalcogenides and halides, on the other hand, can be monolithically deposited on Si or dielectric substrates via thermal evaporation or sputtering, with waveguides defined by using two compositions of different indices as core and cladding layers ( Figure 3K-L) [16,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. Compared to Si or Ge, the drawback of this approach is that chalcogenides and halides are generally not considered compatible with CMOS foundry processes.…”

“…Mid-IR SC generation has already been reported in a number of planar waveguide systems including SOI [112], a-Si [113], Si-on-sapphire [114], and chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) [34,61]. In particular, broadband SC from 2.2 μm to 10.2 μm was demonstrated in a ridge waveguide made from Ge 11.5 As 24 Se 64.5 ChG core embedded inside a Ge 11.5 As 24 S 64.5 cladding and pumped by 330-fs pulses at a center wavelength of 4.184 μm (Figure 7) [115].…”

Ultra-broadband mid-infrared supercontinuum generation using chalcogenide rib waveguide

“…Although we proposed 1-cm-long rib waveguide, the linear propagation loss (α) at a pump wavelength of 3.1 µm we consider here is 0.5 dB/cm ). The value of nonlinear refractive index used in our simulations was reduced by a factor of two from its known value of n 2 = 5.2 × 10 −18 m 2 /W at 1.55 µm (Yu et al 2014). The effective mode area was calculated numerically by using our FE Fig.…”

“…Several research groups have shown experimentally that the extension of SC in the long wavelength region depends on the availability of pump pulses at a suitable wavelength. In particular, the pump wavelength needs to be near 3-4 µm or longer (Mφller et al 2015;Yu et al 2014). To tailor the dispersion around this pump wavelength, the effective mode area of the waveguide is often increased which, in turn, deceases the nonlinear parameter of the waveguide.…”

High-quality chalcogenide glass waveguide fabrication by hot melt smoothing and micro-trench filling

“…High-quality chalcogenide glass waveguide fabrication by hot melt smoothing and micro-trench filling C halcogenide glass waveguides have high third-order nonlinearities, [1][2][3] low two-photon absorption, 4,5) and negligible free carrier absorption, 6) which are preferred in integrated nonlinear photonic devices. 7) However, since the thermal and mechanical properties of ChGs are significantly different from the semiconductor materials widely used in integrated photonic devices, the fabrication techniques of ChG waveguides has become an important topic and attracted much attention.…”