High Kerr nonlinearity hydrogenated amorphous silicon nanowires with low two photon absorption and high optical stability

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of hydrogenated amorphous silicon nanowires with high Kerr nonlinearity, low two-photon absorption, and excellent optical stability, suitable for nonlinear photonics applications.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate optically stable amorphous silicon nanowires with high nonlinear figure of merit and high nonlinearity, maintaining performance under high power over extended periods.

Findings

High nonlinear figure of merit (~5) achieved

Nonlinearity Re({\gamma}) = 1200 W^{-1}m^{-1} demonstrated

No degradation observed over at least one hour at 2 W peak power

Abstract

We demonstrate optically stable amorphous silicon nanowires with both high nonlinear figure of merit (FOM) of ~5 and high nonlinearity Re({\gamma}) = 1200W-1m-1. We observe no degradation in these parameters over the entire course of our experiments including systematic study under operation at 2 W coupled peak power (i.e. ~2GW/cm2) over timescales of at least an hour.