All-Silicon Raman Laser with Quasi-Phase-Matched Structures and Resonators

The principle of all-silicon Raman lasers for an
output wavelength of 1.3 μm is presented, which employs
quasi-phase-matched structures and resonators to enhance the output
power. 1.3-μm laser beams for GE-PONs in FTTH systems generated
from a silicon device are very important because such a silicon device
can be monolithically integrated with the silicon planar lightwave
circuits (Si PLCs) used in the GE-PONs. This reduces the device
fabrication processes and time and also optical losses at the junctions
between optical waveguides of the Si PLCs and Si laser devices
when compared with 1.3-μm III-V semiconductor lasers set on the
Si PLCs employed at present. We show that the quasi-phase-matched
Si Raman laser with resonators can produce about 174 times larger
laser power at 1.3 μm (at maximum) than that without resonators
for a Si waveguide of Raman gain 20 cm/GW and optical loss 1.2
dB/cm, pumped at power 10 mW, where the length of the waveguide
is 3 mm and its cross-section is (1.5 μm)2.

Authors:



References:
[1] M. Iwase et al., “Optical Transceiver Modules for Gigabit Ethernet PON
FTTH System,” Furukawa Rev. 28, 2005, pp. 8-14.
[2] H. Kanamori, “Passive Optical Components and Their Applications to
FTTH Networks,” SEI Tech. Rev. 73, 2011, pp. 14-21.
[3] S. Saito et al., “Stimulated emission of near-infrared radiation by current
injection into silicon (100) quantum well,” Appl. Phys. Lett., 95, 2009,
pp. 1101-1103.
[4] S. Saito et al., “Stimulated emission of near-infrared radiation in silicon
fin light-emitting diode,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 2011, pp. 1104-1106.
[5] H. Rong et al., “An all-silicon Raman laser,” Nature 433, 2005,
pp. 292-294.
[6] H. Rong et al., “A continuous-wave Raman silicon laser,” Nature 433,
2005, pp. 725-727.
[7] R. Claps et al., “Anti-Stokes Raman conversion in silicon waveguides,”
Opt. Exp. 11, 2003, pp. 2862-2872.
[8] O. Boyraz et al., “Observation of simultaneous Stokes and anti-Stokes
emission in a silicon Raman laser,” IEICE Elec. Exp. 1, 2004,
pp. 435-441.
[9] R. W. Boyd, Nonlinear Optics, 1st ed. (Academic Press, San Diego,
1992).
[10] N. Hodgson and H. Weber, Laser Resonators and Beam Propagation
-Fundamentals, Advanced Concepts and Applications, 2nd ed. (Springer,
Berlin, 2005). In our model, true lasing occurs when r2e(g−α)L > 1,
but this gives rise to an infinitely large |A∞|2, particularly at r2 = 1.
This would melt the device, and was avoided in our paper.
[11] R. Claps et al., “Observation of stimulated Raman amplification in
silicon waveguides,” Opt. Exp. 11, 2003, pp. 1731-1739.
[12] K. K. Lee, D. R. Lim, L. C. Kimerling, J. Shin, and F. Cerri, “Fabrication
of ultralow-loss Si/SiO2 waveguides by roughness reduction,” Opt. Lett.
26, 2001, pp. 1888-1890. Since this paper reported 0.8 dB/cm as an
optical loss of a Si waveguide, the fabrication of a waveguide with a
loss of 1.2 dB/cm in our paper is possible.
[13] E. Hecht, Optics, 4th ed. (Pearson Education, Essex, 2002). In our
model, the reflection of the anti-Stokes waves at the interface between
the Si waveguide and the outside air is ignored. Only Stokes waves are
reflected with the resonators. But actually, about 30% of the anti-Stokes
waves are reflected at the interface even when there are no resonators,
so that actually obtainable PAS is about 0.7 PAS.
[14] J. B. Driscoll et al., “Width-modulation of Si photonic wires for
quasi-phase-matching of four-wave-mixing: experimental and theoretical
demonstration,” Opt. Exp. 20, 2012, pp. 9227-9242.