Nonlinear Properties of Hybrid ZnTe-on-Si Waveguides for Telecommunication Applications

• Main Authors: Stoll, Katherine, Bhandari, Harish B., Maksimov, Oleg, Hansen, Katherine, Kimerling, Lionel, Agarwal, Anuradha, Serna, Samuel
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Integratedphotonic devices; Nonlinear material characterization; Nonlinear optical devices; Nonlinear optics; Optical device fabrication; Optical materials; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Silicon; Supercontinuum generation
• ISSN: 2693-8316
• DOI: 10.1109/PN58661.2023.10222998

Nonlinear photonic devices are critical for many integrated infrared platform applications such as supercontinuum generation and frequency combs. It also holds the promise of all-optical modulators that will surpass by orders of magnitude the current devices. Typically, these devices rely on Si material platforms that suffer from high nonlinear losses due to two-photon absorption (TPA). A novel, hybrid ZnTe-on-Si waveguide system is demonstrated and fully characterized via ellipsometry and a combination of a bidirectional top-hat spectral broadening measurement and a dispersive scan (D-Scan) experiment to extract the effective TPA coefficient (\beta_{TPA}) and optical Kerr coefficient (n 2 ) of the hybrid waveguide system. The experimentally characterized \beta_{TPA}=S.76x10^{-13}m/W of this ZnTe-on-Si system is an order of magnitude lower than pure Si waveguides with a comparable nonlinear Kerr coefficient, providing a promising material platform for future high-performance, low-loss, compact, integrated nonlinear infrared devices.