Thermal Behaviors and Optical Parametric Oscillation in 4H‐Silicon Carbide Integrated Platforms

Abstract

4H‐silicon carbide (SiC) integrated platforms have shown great potential in quantum and nonlinear photonics. However, the thermal properties of 4H‐SiC waveguides are still unknown, even though thermo‐optic effects can play an important role in fundamental measurements and practical applications. Herein, the thermo‐optic effects in a 4H‐SiC microring resonator are comprehensively studied, by means of both temperature tuning and self‐heating. The thermo‐optic coefficient and the ratio between the thermal absorption and the thermal diffusion of 4H‐SiC are quantitatively measured to be and , respectively. Considering the acquired thermal properties, Kerr‐nonlinearity‐based dual‐pump optical parametric oscillation (OPO) is experimentally achieved, and thus, it is demonstrated that broadband solitons can feasibly be generated through thermal tuning of 4H‐SiC‐on‐insulator (SiCOI) microring resonators.

Silicon Carbide Photonics Bridging Quantum Technology

“…74,78,167 Recently wafer-scale 4H-SiCOI was optimized by ion-cutting and layer transferring 29 and microring resonators with quality factors of 6.6 × 10 4 were achieved, providing a integrated nonlinear photonic platform. 82 Ion irradiation in the smart-cut process, however, induces lattice damage which increases optical absorption within the structure, 59 limiting the Q-factor below 10 5 , and is detrimental for the quantum coherence properties of the targeted spin centers.…”

“…Using 4H-SiCOI obtained from smart cut wafer the highest Q of microring resonators obtained is 7.3 × 10 4 , 59 while using wafer bonding and thinning down technique microring resonators were fabricated with Q ≈ 7.8 × 10 5 , 39 Q ≈ 1.1 × 10 6 to achieve for the first OPO in SiC, 19 and Q ≈ 5.6 × 10 6 to study the quantum effects in soliton microcombs. 84 Dual-pump OPO has been demonstrated also in smart-cut 4H-SiCOI ring resonators; 82 thermal effects on optical power absorption and thermal tuning broadband solitons were studied. Third-order nonlinearity in 4H-SiC is polarization-dependent and all the above FMW processes were demonstrated with TE polarized light or ordinary polarization.…”

“…By nanostructuring SiC and improving the quality factor ( Q ) of the microring and microdisk resonators, NLO effects based on second-order and third-order nonlinear coefficients have been recently enhanced and observed (Figure a). Generally, the NLO response of 3C, 4H, and 6H-SiC nanostructures covering the optical spectrum from the visible through the mid-infrared and far-infrared, could open up a wide range of applications such as wavelength conversion, four-wave mixing (FWM) observed in both 4H and 3C-SiC, ,, second/third/fourth-harmonic generation observed in 4H-SiC microdisk resonators (Figure b–e), SHG, and difference frequency generation (DFG) in 3C-SiCOI microring resonators and waveguides, optical parametric oscillator (OPO) in 4H-SiC microring resonators, , parametric amplification in 4H-SiC crystal, frequency comb generation , (achieved with the lowest possible power generation efficiency after AlGaAs on-insulator; Figure f), self-phase modulation, and supercontinuum generation in 6H-SiC crystal from 1.3 to 2.4 μm. Nonlinear optical properties in 4H-SiC have been also investigated in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) where broadband emission from 3.90 to 5.60 μm was obtained from DFG.…”

“…4H-SiC epitaxial layers can only be grown on SiC substrates, so that selective etching techniques, routinely used for example in the III–V platform, are not available. One powerful approach for photonics fabrication in SiC is based on the SiC-on-insulator (SiCOI) technology that promises large-scale production capabilities due to its industrial relevance and CMOS compatibility. ,, The first SiCOI structures were demonstrated in 1997 using the smart-cut process, and SiCOI nanophotonic structures were subsequently fabricated. ,, Recently wafer-scale 4H-SiCOI was optimized by ion-cutting and layer transferring and microring resonators with quality factors of 6.6 × 10 4 were achieved, providing a integrated nonlinear photonic platform …”

High-Performance Polarization-Independent Beam Splitters and MZI in Silicon Carbide Integrated Platforms for Single-Photon Manipulation

“…Corresponding author: Haiyan Ou This work is supported by European Union's Horizon 2020 Future and Emerging Technologies Open (SiComb, No.899679) and European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation (RADIATE, No.824096). efficient wavelength conversion, frequency comb generation, thermo-optic modulation, and electro-optic modulation [8], [9], [10], [11]. SiC-on-insulator (SiCOI) stacks enabling tight light confinement have emerged to make high-refractive-indexcontrast waveguides, which takes the advantage of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible waveguide fabrication processes [12], [13].…”