Observations of four-wave mixing in slow-light silicon photonic crystal waveguides

TL;DR

This paper reports on four-wave mixing in slow-light silicon photonic crystal waveguides, demonstrating enhanced efficiency at slow group velocities and analyzing the effects of dispersion on bandwidth and efficiency.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of enhanced four-wave mixing efficiency in slow-light regimes and compares results with numerical models.

Findings

12-dB increase in conversion efficiency

Enhanced efficiency at slow group velocities

Decreased bandwidth due to increased dispersion

Abstract

Four-wave mixing is observed in a silicon W1 photonic crystal waveguide. The dispersion dependence of the idler conversion efficiency is measured and shown to be enhanced at wavelengths exhibiting slow group velocities. A 12-dB increase in the conversion efficiency is observed. Concurrently, a decrease in the conversion bandwidth is observed due to the increase in group velocity dispersion in the slow-light regime. The experimentally observed conversion efficiencies agree with the numerically modeled results.