Highly efficient fiber to Si waveguide free-form coupler for foundry-scale silicon photonics

As silicon photonics transitions from research to commercial deployment,packaging solutions that efficiently couple light into highly compact and functional sub-micrometer silicon waveguides are imperative but remain challenging.The 220 nm silicon-on-insulator(SOI)platform,poised to enable large-scale integration,is the most widely adopted by foundries,resulting in established fabrication processes and extensive photonic component libraries.The development of a highly efficient,scalable,and broadband coupling scheme for this platform is therefore of paramount importance.Leveraging two-photon polymerization(TPP)and a deterministic free-form micro-optics design methodology based on the Fermat’s principle,this work demonstrates an ultraefficient and broadband 3-D coupler interface between standard SMF-28 single-mode fibers and silicon waveguides on the 220 nm SOI platform.The coupler achieves a low coupling loss of 0.8 dB for the fundamental TE mode,along with 1 dB bandwidth exceeding 180 nm.The broadband operation enables diverse bandwidthdriven applications ranging from communications to spectroscopy.Furthermore,the 3-D free-form coupler also enables large tolerance to fiber misalignments and manufacturing variability,thereby relaxing packaging requirements toward cost reduction capitalizing on standard electronic packaging process flows.

Mode selection and dispersion engineering in Bragg-like slot photonic crystal waveguides for hybrid light-matter interactions

We introduce a family of slot photonic crystal waveguides(SPh CWs) for the hybrid integration of low-index active materials in silicon photonics with energy-confinement factors of ~30% in low-index regions. The proposed approach, which is based on a periodic indentation of the etched slot in the middle of the SPh CW, makes it possible to reconcile a simultaneously narrow and wide slot for exploiting the two modes of even symmetry of a SPh CW. The resulting mode-selection mechanism allows a flexible choice of the modes to be used. Furthermore,the proposed structure offers tremendous flexibility for adjusting the dispersive properties of the slot-confined modes, in particular of their slow-light effects. Flat band slow light in a bandwidth of about 60 nm with a group velocity dispersion factor jβ_2 j below 1 ps^2∕mm is numerically demonstrated by this approach, corresponding to a normalized delay bandwidth product of around 0.4. These results, obtained from hollow-core periodic waveguides that are directly designed in view of hybrid integration of active materials in mechanically robust structures(not based on free-standing membranes) could pave the way for the realization of on-chip slow-light bio-sensing,active hybrid-silicon optoelectronic devices, or all-optical hybrid-silicon nonlinear functionalities.

Nonlinear optical properties of integrated GeSbS chalcogenide waveguides

In this paper, we report the experimental characterization of highly nonlinear GeSbS chalcogenide glass waveguides. We used a single-beam characterization protocol that accounts for the magnitude and sign of the real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear susceptibility of integrated Ge23Sb7S70 （GeSbS） chalcogenide glass waveguides in the near-infrared wavdength range at λ = 1580 nm. We measured a waveguide nonlinear parameter of 7.0 4- 0.7 W-1 · m-1, which corresponds to a nonlinear refractive index of n2 =（0.93 ± 0.08） ×10-18 m2/W, comparable to that of silicon, but with an 80 times lower two-photon absorption coefficient βTPA = （0.010± 0.003） cm/GW, accompanied with linear propagation losses as low as 0.5 dB/cm. The outstanding linear and nonlinear properties of GeSbS, with a measured nonlinear figure of merit FOM TPA = 6.0 ± 1.4 at λ = 1580 nm, ultimately make it one of the most promising integrated platforms for the realization of nonlinear functionalities.

Hybrid silicon slotted photonic crystal waveguides:how does third order nonlinear performance scale with slow light?

We investigate in this paper the influence of slow light on the balance between the Kerr and two-photon absorption(TPA) processes in silicon slotted hybrid nonlinear waveguides. Three typical silicon photonic waveguide geometries are studied to estimate the influence of the light slow-down factor on the mode field overlap with the silicon region, as well as on the complex effective nonlinear susceptibility. It is found that slotted photonic crystal modes tend to focalize in their hollow core with increasing group index(n_G) values. Considering a hybrid integration of nonlinear polymers in such slotted waveguides, a relative decrease of the TPA process by more factor of 2 is predicted from n_G=10 to n_G=50. As a whole, this work shows that the relative influence of TPA decreases for slotted waveguides operating in the slow light regime, making them a suitable platform for third-order nonlinear optics.

Third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of crystalline oxide yttria-stabilized zirconia

Nonlinear all-optical technology is an ultimate route for the next-generation ultrafast signal processing of optical communication systems.New nonlinear functionalities need to be implemented in photonics,and complex oxides are considered as promising candidates due to their wide panel of attributes.In this context,yttria-stabilized zirconia(YSZ)stands out,thanks to its ability to be epitaxially grown on silicon,adapting the lattice for the crystalline oxide family of materials.We report,for the first time to the best of our knowledge,a detailed theoretical and experimental study about the third-order nonlinear susceptibility in crystalline YSZ.Via self-phase modulation-induced broadening and considering the in-plane orientation of YSZ,we experimentally obtained an effective Kerr coefficient of n2YSZ=4.0±2×10^-19 m^2·W^-1 in an 8%(mole fraction)YSZ waveguide.In agreement with the theoretically predicted n2YSZ=1.3×10^-19 m^2·W^-1,the third-order nonlinear coefficient of YSZ is comparable with the one of silicon nitride,which is already being used in nonlinear optics.These promising results are a new step toward the implementation of functional oxides for nonlinear optical applications.