Optical parametric oscillation in silicon carbide nanophotonics

Silicon carbide (SiC) is rapidly emerging as a leading platform for the implementation of nonlinear and quantum photonics. Here, we find that commercial SiC, which hosts a variety of spin qubits, possesses low optical absorption that can enable SiC integrated photonics with quality factors exceeding 107. We fabricate multimode microring resonators with quality factors as high as 1.1 million, and observe low-threshold (8.5 +/- 0.5 mW) optical parametric oscillation using the fundamental mode as well as optical microcombs spanning 200 nm using a higher-order mode. Our demonstration is an essential milestone in the development of photonic devices that harness the unique optical properties of SiC, paving the way toward the monolithic integration of nonlinear photonics with spin-based quantum technologies. (c) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement