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Broad-band Parametric Gain on Silicon Chip |
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| Developing an optical amplifier on silicon is essential for the success of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic integrated circuits. A key strength of optical communications is the parallelism of information transfer and processing onto multiple wavelength channels. If broad gain bandwidths can be demonstrated on silicon, then an array of wavelength channels could be generated and processed, representing a critical advance for densely integrated photonic circuits. Here we demonstrate net on/off gain over a wavelength range of 28nm through the optical process of phase-matched four-wave mixing in suitably designed SOI channel waveguides. We also demonstrate wavelength conversion in the range 1,511–1,591nm with peak conversion efficiencies of +5.2dB, which represents more than 20 times improvement on previous four-wave-mixing efficiencies in SOI waveguides. These advances allow for the implementation of dense wavelength division multiplexing in an all-silicon photonic integrated circuit. Additionally, all-optical delays, all-optical switches, optical signal regenerators and optical sources for quantum information technology, all demonstrated using four-wave mixing in silica fibers, can now be transferred to the SOI platform. |
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The four-wave mixing process involves the conversion of two pump photons to a signal photon and an idler photon (top). By suitable design of the waveguide, momentum conservation (that is, phase-matching) is also satisfied and amplification of the signal occurs (bottom).
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M. A. Foster, A. C. Turner, J. E. Sharping, B. S. Schmidt, M. Lipson, and A.L. Gaeta, "Broad-band optical parametric gain on a silicon photonic chip," Nature 441, 960-963 (2006). PDF
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| 159 Clark Hall |
| Cornell University |
| Ithaca, NY 14853 |
| (607) 255-0657 Lab |
| a.gaeta@cornell.edu |
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