Design of an on-chip wavelength conversion device assisted by an erbium-ytterbium co-doped waveguide amplifier

Abstract

In current documented studies, it has been observed that wavelength converters utilizing AlGaAsOI waveguides exhibit suboptimal on-chip wavelength conversion efficiency from the C-band to the 2 μm band, generally falling below −20.0 dB. To address this issue, we present a novel wavelength conversion device assisted by a waveguide amplifier, incorporating both AlGaAs wavelength converter and erbium-ytterbium co-doped waveguide amplifier, thereby achieving a notable conversion efficiency exceeding 0 dB. The noteworthy enhancement in efficiency can be attributed to the specific dispersion design of the AlGaAs wavelength converter, which enables an upsurge in conversion efficiency to −15.54 dB under 100 mW of pump power. Furthermore, the integration of an erbium-ytterbium co-doped waveguide amplifier facilitates a loss compensation of over 15 dB. Avoiding the use of external optical amplifiers, this device enables efficient and high-bandwidth wavelength conversion, showing promising applications in various fields, such as optical communication, sensing, imaging, and beyond. Graphical Abstract