An octave spanning mid-infrared frequency comb generated in a silicon nanophotonic wire waveguide

TL;DR

This paper reports the generation of an octave-spanning mid-infrared frequency comb using a silicon nanophotonic waveguide, demonstrating broad spectrum coverage, phase coherence, and agreement with simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel silicon nanophotonic waveguide design capable of producing a broad, coherent frequency comb in the mid-infrared range.

Findings

Spectrum covers 1540 nm to 3200 nm

Supercontinuum generated with low pulse energy of 15 pJ

Experimental results match numerical simulations

Abstract

We demonstrate an octave-spanning frequency comb with a spectrum covering wavelengths from 1,540 nm up to 3,200 nm. The supercontinuum is generated by pumping a 1-cm long dispersion engineered silicon wire waveguide by 70 fs pulses with an energy of merely 15 pJ. We confirm the phase coherence of the output spectrum by beating the supercontinuum with narrow bandwidth CW lasers. We show that the experimental results are in agreement with numerical simulations.