Analytical modeling of mid-infrared silicon Raman lasers

J. Ma; S. Fathpour

doi:10.1117/12.907157

1 February 2012 Analytical modeling of mid-infrared silicon Raman lasers

J. Ma, S. Fathpour

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8264, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XVI; 82640B (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.907157
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2012, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Silicon photonics has significantly matured in the near-infrared (telecommunication) wavelength range with several commercial products already in the market. More recently, the technology has been extended into the mid-infrared (mid- IR) regime with potential applications in biochemical sensing, tissue photoablation, environmental monitoring and freespace communications. The key advantage of silicon in the mid-IR, as compared with near-IR, is the absence of twophoton absorption (TPA) and free-carrier absorption (FCA). The absence of these nonlinear losses would potentially lead to high-performance nonlinear devices based on Raman and Kerr effects. Also, with the absence of TPA and FCA, the coupled-wave equations that are usually numerically solved to model these nonlinear devices lend themselves to analytical solutions in the mid-IR. In this paper, an analytical model for mid-IR silicon Raman lasers is developed. The validity of the model is confirmed by comparing it with numerical solutions of the coupled-wave equations. The developed model can be used as a versatile and efficient tool for analysis, design and optimization of mid-IR silicon Raman lasers, or to find good initial guesses for numerical methods. The effects of cavity parameters, such as cavity length and facet reflectivities, on the lasing threshold and input-output characteristics of the Raman laser are studied. For instance, for a propagation loss of 0.5 dB/cm, conversion efficiencies as high as 56% is predicted. The predicted optimum cavity (waveguide) length at 2.0 dB/cm propagation loss is ~ 3.4 mm. The results of this study predict strong prospects for mid-IR silicon Raman lasers for the mentioned applications.

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J. Ma and S. Fathpour "Analytical modeling of mid-infrared silicon Raman lasers", Proc. SPIE 8264, Integrated Optics: Devices, Materials, and Technologies XVI, 82640B (1 February 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.907157

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