Silicon-integrated nonlinear III-V photonics
Weiqiang Xie, Chao Xiang, Lin Chang, Warren Jin, Jonathan Peters, John E. Bowers
Abstract
Mainstream silicon photonic integrated circuits are based on compact and low-loss silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide platforms. However, monolithic SOI-based photonics provides only a limited number of functional device types. Here, to extend the on-chip capabilities, we propose a general heterogeneous integration approach to embed highly nonlinear III-V (AlGaAs) photonics into the SOI platform. We develop low-loss AlGaAs-on-SOI photonic circuits with integrated Si waveguides and showcase sub-milliwatt-threshold ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m1"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo form="prefix">∼</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.25</mml:mn> <mml:mtext> </mml:mtext> <mml:mi>mW</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) Kerr frequency comb generation in ultrahigh- <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m2"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> AlGaAs microrings ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m3"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> over <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m4"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>6</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) at the telecom bands. Our demonstration complements existing mature Si photonics technology with efficient nonlinear functionalities provided by III-V and propels conventional Si photonics into emerging nonlinear photonic applications towards fully chip-based nonlinear engines.