Supercontinuum generation in varying dispersion and birefringent silicon waveguide

Abstract

Ability to selectively enhance the amplitude and maintain high coherence of the supercontinuum signal with long pulses is gaining significance. In this work, an extra degree of freedom afforded by varying the dispersion profile of a waveguide is utilized to selectively enhance supercontinuum. As much as 16 dB signal enhancement in the telecom window and 100 nm of wavelength extension is achieved with a cascaded waveguide, compared to a fixed dispersion waveguide. Waveguide tapering, in particular with increasing width, is determined to have a flatter and more coherent supercontinuum than a fixed dispersion waveguide when longer input pulses are used. Furthermore, due to the strong birefringence of an asymmetric silicon waveguide the supercontinuum signal is broadened by pumping simultaneously with both quasi-transverse electric (TE) and quasi-transverse magnetic (TM) mode in the anomalous dispersion regime. Thus, selective signal generation is obtained by controlling the dispersion for the two modes. Such waveguides offer several advantages over optical fiber as the variation in dispersion can be controlled with greater flexibility in an integrated platform. This work paves the way forward for various applications in fields ranging from medicine to telecom where specific wavelength windows need to be targeted.