Design optimization of a compact photonic crystal microcavity based on slow light and dispersion engineering for the miniaturization of integrated mode-locked lasers

Abstract

We exploit slow light (high ng) modes in planar photonic crystals in order to design a compact cavity, which provides an attractive path towards the miniaturization of near-infrared integrated fast pulsed lasers. By applying dispersion engineering techniques, we can design structures with a low dispersion, as needed by mode-locking operation. Our basic InP SiO2 heterostructure is robust and well suited to integrated laser applications. We show that an optimized 30 μm long cavity design yields 9 frequency-equidistant modes with a FSR of 178 GHz within a 11.5 nm bandwidth, which could potentially sustain the generation of optical pulses shorter than 700 fs. In addition, the numerically calculated quality factors of these modes are all above 10,000, making them suitable for reaching laser operation. Thanks to the use of a high group index (28), this cavity design is almost one order of magnitude shorter than standard rib-waveguide based mode-locked lasers. The use of slow light modes in planar photonic crystal based cavities thus relaxes the usual constraints that tightly link the device size and the quality (peak power, repetition rate) of the pulsed laser signal.

Millimeter-scale chip–based supercontinuum generation for optical coherence tomography

“…Here, we demonstrate a miniature supercontinuum light source, which has a sensitivity of 105 dB with 300-μW power on the sample. Although we use an off-chip femtosecond pump laser in the present setup, efforts are being made toward miniaturization of mode-locked lasers ( 48 ). Together with the efforts of miniaturizing and packaging different building blocks of OCT using silicon photonics, along with the development of imaging probes ( 49 – 54 ), there is potential toward the realization of a high-performance, low-cost, and fully integrated OCT system.…”

Millimeter-Scale Chip-Based Supercontinuum Generation for Optical Coherence Tomography

“…Here, we demonstrate a miniature supercontinuum light source, which has a sensitivity of 105 dB with 300-W power on the sample. Although we use an off-chip femtosecond pump laser in the present setup, efforts are being made toward miniaturization of mode-locked lasers (48). Together with the efforts of miniaturizing and packaging different building blocks of OCT using silicon photonics, along with the development of imaging probes (49-54), there is potential toward the realization of a high-performance, low-cost, and fully integrated OCT system.…”

Molecular Vibrational Polaritons Towards Quantum Technologies

“…[ 69 ] Vibrational strong coupling must be reached with fewer molecules to achieve single‐photon IR sources, which could be realized with miniaturized photonic cavities. [ 70,71 ]…”

“…[69] Vibrational strong coupling must be reached with fewer molecules to achieve single-photon IR sources, which could be realized with miniaturized photonic cavities. [70,71] Overall, MVPs is an emerging field with great potential and understanding this new field could impact the development of quantum technology for use at room temperature.…”