Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper

Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper

Citation

Barclay, P. E., Srinivasan, K., & Painter, O. (2005). Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper. Optics Express, 13(3), 801–820). 

Keywords

  • Silicon photonic crystal resonant cavity
  • Optical fiber
  • Tapered standard single-mode
  • High-Q
  • Ultra-small mode volume
  • Nonlinear absorption
  • Nonlinear dispersion
  • Photonic crystal microcavity
  • Integrated waveguide
  • Fiber taper
  • Optical bistability
  • Free-carrier lifetime
  • Photonic crystal waveguide (PCWG)
  • Two-photon absorption
  • Free-carrier absorption
  • Kerr effect
  • Thermal dispersion

Brief

The authors demonstrate a technique for efficiently transferring light between a tapered standard single-mode optical fiber and a high-Q, ultra-small mode volume, silicon photonic crystal resonant cavity. This technique uses the efficient cavity input and output channel to study the steady-state nonlinear absorption and dispersion of the photonic crystal cavity.

Summary

The article, "Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper" by Paul E. Barclay, Kartik Srinivasan, and Oskar Painter, published in Optics Express (2005), investigates an efficient method to couple light into and out of a high-Q silicon photonic crystal (PC) cavity using a tapered optical fiber. This method achieves a fiber-to-cavity coupling efficiency of 44%. The authors then used this technique to study the nonlinear optical properties of the PC cavity, observing optical bistability at low input powers and inferring a short free-carrier lifetime, potentially due to surface effects within the cavity.

This efficient coupling method utilized a photonic crystal waveguide (PCWG) to connect the optical fiber taper to the PC cavity. The PCWG was designed to have its fundamental mode spatially matched to that of the PC cavity and to be phase matched with the optical fiber taper, thus enabling the efficient transfer of light. To study the nonlinear response of the PC cavity, the authors varied the input power to the PCWG and measured the resulting changes in resonance properties. These measurements showed that while two-photon absorption is present in the system, it is free carriers generated through this process and their resulting absorption and dispersion that predominantly dictate the nonlinear behavior of the PC cavity.

Origin: https://www.semanticscholar.org/reader/256decfbd68d8563804f77c5246c090ec2838de3

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