硅基慢光光子晶体波导的设计制备及其在四波混频上的应用

Slow light, which can be used in the next generation all-optical and quantum-optical communications, has been developed rapidly in the past ten years. By using different methods, slow light can be achieved and applied in different areas. One of the attractive area is to use the flat band slow light in silicon photonic crystal slab waveguide to enhance the light-matter interaction in the silicon optics. Base on this method, the size and power of the devices can be significantly improved compare to the all-optical device fabricated by the silicon nanowire and cavity. In this proposal, we plan to design and fabricate the silicon slow light photnic crystals waveguides with high group index, low dispersion and low propagation loss, then demonstrate the efficient four-wave mixing (-10 dB conversion efficiency) with only 100's mW pump power and 100's micrometer length of sample. Meanwhile, the results will be improved by designing and fabricating the silica-embedded waveguide structure. At last, we will fabricate a novel slow light waveguide by combining the optical parametric oscillator and slow light waveguide, in order to lower the input power of the four-wave mixing process to 10's mW. This corresponds to two orders of magnitude improvement or better in device performance compared to the State-of-the-Art silicon nanowire.

慢光是近十年才发展起来的，用于下一代全光通信和量子信息处理的新兴研究课题。人们为此提出了许多实现慢光的手段，各种不同方法实现的慢光被用于不同的领域。其中使用硅基平板光子晶体波导实现的平带慢光可极大增强光与物质的相互作用，能进一步降低目前发展的基于硅纳米波导线及共振腔的硅基上的全光通信器件的尺寸和能耗，是下一代全光通信的重要发展方向。本项目拟设计并制备具有平带慢光特性的硅基平板光子晶体波导，从而实现高群折射率，低色散和低传播损耗的慢光，并使用100 mW量级的光能量和几百微米的波导演示-10dB的四波混频效应；同时通过设计和制备嵌入二氧化硅结构的波导提高器件的性能；最后将结合光学参量振荡过程和慢光，制备出新型的波导结构，将高效四波混频的输入光能降致至10mW。达到在缩小上百倍长度的基础上实现目前硅纳米波导线功能的目标，进一步提高慢光在实际光通信中的应用。

本项目主要使用慢光波导的微纳器件实现四波混频等光场调控。基于此，我们设计制备了低损耗、低色散的光子晶体慢光波导，并使用慢光波导实现了可任意调节的间接光子转换，测量近红外皮秒激光的自相关和孤子压缩特性。同时，在利用慢光波导实现光场在时间局域的基础上，设计制备了能达到高效空间光场局域的准随机结构，并应用于高陷光太阳电池微纳结构等方面。最后通过微腔，光栅等新方式提出进一步提高慢光增强光与物质相互作用特性的方案。本项目基本完成了研究计划，相关成果发表在Nature Communication, PRL等国外著名杂志，在后续工作中将集中在减低器件损耗并应用于光通信和太阳电池等方面。