High-efficiency degenerate four wave-mixing in triply resonant nanobeam cavities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates highly efficient degenerate four-wave mixing in triply resonant nanobeam cavities, achieving near 100% pump depletion and high quantum efficiencies at low power levels in the telecom range.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical and simulation approach to achieve high-efficiency four-wave mixing in nanobeam cavities, accounting for nonlinear effects and imperfections.

Findings

Near 100% pump depletion at low powers

High quantum efficiencies predicted in silicon cavities

Effective nonlinear dynamics control in nanobeam structures

Abstract

We demonstrate high-efficiency, degenerate four-wave mixing in triply resonant Kerr $\chi^(3)$ photonic crystal (PhC) nanobeam cavities. Using a combination of temporal coupled mode theory and nonlinear finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, we study the nonlinear dynamics of resonant four-wave mixing processes and demonstrate the possibility of observing high-efficiency limit cycles and steady-state conversion corresponding to $\approx 100$% depletion of the pump light at low powers, even including effects due to losses, self- and cross-phase modulation, and imperfect frequency matching. Assuming operation in the telecom range, we predict close to perfect quantum efficiencies at reasonably low $\sim$ 50 mW input powers in silicon micrometer-scale cavities.