Silicon Nitride Microresonator Raman Lasers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates efficient, tunable Raman lasing in silicon nitride microresonators, highlighting the platform's potential for integrated broadband light sources through optimized nonlinear interactions.

Contribution

The work introduces the first efficient Raman lasing in SiN microresonators with broadband tunability, achieved by dispersion engineering and mode overlap optimization.

Findings

Achieved sub-2 mW threshold Raman lasing in SiN microresonators.

Demonstrated broadband tunability exceeding 120 cm⁻¹ in Raman shift.

Showed the impact of optical confinement and Q factor on nonlinear efficiency.

Abstract

Silicon nitride (SiN) has emerged as a promising platform for integrated nonlinear photonics because of its low propagation loss, wide transparency window, and CMOS compatibility. Nonlinear processes arising from photon-electron interactions, such as Kerr frequency comb generation and second harmonic generation, have been extensively explored. In contrast, photon-phonon interaction-based nonlinearities, such as stimulated Raman scattering, remain largely unexplored in this integrated platform, despite their potential for broadband frequency conversion. Here, we demonstrate efficient Raman lasing in ultra-high-Q SiN microresonators by harnessing the strong intracavity field enhancement and engineering the optical mode to overlap with the Raman-active silica cladding. Through dispersion engineering and waveguide geometry optimization, we suppress competing Kerr nonlinearities while enhancing Raman gain, achieving lasing with sub-2 mW thresholds. We further investigate the trade-off between optical confinement and quality factor, revealing its impact on the overall nonlinear efficiency. Moreover, we also demonstrate broadband tunability of the Raman shift exceeding 120 inverse centimeters, enabled by the wide Raman gain spectrum of silica, offering new flexibility in designing integrated tunable Raman lasers. These results position SiN as a viable platform for chip-scale Raman lasers, expanding the nonlinear optics toolbox of the SiN platform and enabling compact, power-efficient light sources for applications in spectroscopy, optical communications, and quantum photonics.