A silicon-based widely tunable short-wave infrared optical parametric oscillator

Abstract

We demonstrate a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on parametric gain in a silicon-on-insulator photonic wire. We exploit the highly nonlinear broadband response of the photonic wire to achieve broadband single-pass amplification up to 54 dB. This allows us to construct an OPO that is tunable across a 75 nm-wide band near 2075 nm, when pumped by a picosecond pulse train at 2175 nm. Additionally we demonstrate broadband tuning across 150 nm by varying the pump wavelength and exploiting the higher order dispersion characteristics of the silicon photonic wire. © 2013 Optical Society of America.