Open AccessMidinfrared supercontinuum generation from 2 to 6 μm in a silicon nanowire
Author(s) -
Neetesh Singh,
Darren D. Hudson,
Yi Yu,
Christian Grillet,
Stuart D. Jackson,
Alvaro Casas-Bedoya,
A. M. Read,
Petar Atanackovic,
Steven G. Duvall,
Stefano Palomba,
Barry LutherDavies,
Steve Madden,
David Moss,
Benjamin J. Eggleton
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
optica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.074
H-Index - 107
ISSN - 2334-2536
DOI - 10.1364/optica.2.000797
Subject(s) - supercontinuum , optoelectronics , photonics , materials science , silicon , silicon photonics , cladding (metalworking) , optics , silicon on insulator , wavelength , physics , photonic crystal fiber , metallurgy
Silicon has attracted great interest as a platform for both linear and nonlinear integrated photonics for over 15 years. While its primary applications have been in the telecom window (near 1.5 μm), the capability of exploiting its full transparency window to 8 μm in the mid-IR is highly attractive, since this will open it up to entirely new applications in fields such as spectroscopy, chemical and biological sensing, and free-space communications. However, while silicon-on-insulator has shown great promise just beyond the telecommunications window [to the shortwave IR band (2.5 μm)], its wavelength range has been limited to < 4 μm by absorption in the silica cladding layer. Here, we demonstrate octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in silicon, covering a continuous spectral range from 1.9 to beyond 6 μm in dispersion-engineered silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) nanowires. This represents both the widest spectrum and longest wavelength generated to date in any silicon platform, and establishes SOS as a promising new platform for integrated nonlinear photonics in the mid-IR.6 page(s