Nonlinear silicon photonics

Abstract

Silicon photonics is a technology based on fabricating integrated optical circuits by using the same paradigms as the dominant electronics industry. After twenty years of fervid development, silicon photonics is entering the market with low cost, high performance and mass-manufacturable optical devices. Until now, most silicon photonic devices have been based on linear optical effects, despite the many phenomenologies associated with nonlinear optics in both bulk materials and integrated waveguides. Silicon and silicon-based materials have strong optical nonlinearities which are enhanced in integrated devices by the small cross-section of the high-index contrast silicon waveguides or photonic crystals. Here the photons are made to strongly interact with the medium where they propagate. This is the central argument of nonlinear silicon photonics. It is the aim of this review to describe the state-of-the-art in the field. Starting from the basic nonlinearities in a silicon waveguide or in optical resonator geometries, many phenomena and applications are described—including frequency generation, frequency conversion, frequency-comb generation, supercontinuum generation, soliton formation, temporal imaging and time lensing, Raman lasing, and comb spectroscopy. Emerging quantum photonics applications, such as entangled photon sources, heralded single-photon sources and integrated quantum photonic circuits are also addressed at the end of this review.

Intermodal Bragg-Scattering Four Wave Mixing in Silicon Waveguides

“…where N is the free carrier density generated by the pumps (considering an effective carrier lifetime of 5 ns) while σ θ and µ θ represent the free carrier absorption and the free carrier dispersion terms, respectively [22], [23]. The parameters used in numerical simulations are reported in Tab.…”

Field-Induced Nonlinearities in Silicon Waveguides Embedded in Lateral p-n Junctions

“…Although the promising results have been recently reported in the integration of LN [6,7], nowadays the technologies used to realize integrated devices with large-χ (2) materials are less advanced than the one based on silicon. In fact, the Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology developed for microelectronics is well established, and this enabled the realization of high quality silicon-based devices [8]. However, due to the centrosymmetry of crystalline silicon, χ (2) processes are strongly inhibited [8].…”

“…In fact, the Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology developed for microelectronics is well established, and this enabled the realization of high quality silicon-based devices [8]. However, due to the centrosymmetry of crystalline silicon, χ (2) processes are strongly inhibited [8]. Therefore, nonlinear silicon photonics makes use of the third order nonlinear susceptibilities χ (3) of silicon, with which different phenomena and a large variety of applications have been demonstrated [8].…”

“…However, due to the centrosymmetry of crystalline silicon, χ (2) processes are strongly inhibited [8]. Therefore, nonlinear silicon photonics makes use of the third order nonlinear susceptibilities χ (3) of silicon, with which different phenomena and a large variety of applications have been demonstrated [8]. However, the possibility to induce a non-zero χ (2) in silicon has been widely investigated [9], because it would enable interesting phenomena like Pockels effect, Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) or Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC) [1].…”

Evaluation Model and Empirical Study on the Competitiveness of the County Silicon Crystal Industry

“…Before the 21st century, most academic research on the silicon crystal industry was performed from a national and provincial perspective [18][19][20]. Regarding this perspective, Yonghua Shou et al studied the development of the world silicon crystal industry, introduced information on the production of polysilicon in developed countries, such as Japan and the United States, introduced the defects in the production technology of silicon crystals in detail, and predicted the development trend of silicon materials [21].…”