Widely tunable silicon Raman aser

Stimulated Raman scattering is an effective means of wavelength conversion and can largely extend the operating spectral range of an optical source. We demonstrate a high-performance tunable Raman laser on a sub-micrometer-thick silicon on insulator wafer using a standard foundry process. The key feature to this laser is the use of a tunable coupling mechanism to adjust both pump and signal coupling coefficients in the ring cavity, allowing demonstration of laser emission over a large wavelength tuning range of 83 nm. This Raman laser demonstrates efficient (slope of up to 26% and a maximum pump-to-signal power conversion efficiency of 10%) on-chip nonlinear wavelength conversion. Our results indicate great promise for substantially increasing the optical spectral resources available on a silicon chip. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study demonstrates a high-performance tunable Raman laser on a sub-micrometer-thick silicon wafer, achieving a large wavelength tuning range of 83 nm by adjusting coupling coefficients. The efficient on-chip nonlinear wavelength conversion of this Raman laser indicates the potential for significantly increasing optical spectral resources on a silicon chip.