Supercontinuum generation in an on-chip silica waveguide.

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• On-chip supercontinuum generation is crucial for various photonic applications.
• Silica waveguides offer a promising platform due to their nonlinear properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate supercontinuum generation in an on-chip silica spiral waveguide.
• To characterize the spectral broadening of ultrashort pulses in this integrated photonic device.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 180 fs pulses from an optical parametric oscillator centered at 1330 nm.
• Launched pulses into an on-chip silica spiral waveguide.
• Measured the generated spectrum and compared it with simulations using the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

Main Results:

• Achieved supercontinuum generation with a broad spectrum spanning 936 to 1888 nm (162 THz) in the fundamental TM mode.
• Spectrum measured at -50 dB from the peak with a coupled pulse energy of 2.17 nJ.
• Excellent agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations.

Conclusions:

• On-chip supercontinuum generation is feasible in silica spiral waveguides.
• The demonstrated device provides a broad spectral bandwidth for potential applications.
• Numerical modeling accurately predicts the nonlinear propagation dynamics.