We present an effective approach to evaluate the performance of multi-channel silicon (Si) photonic systems. The system is composed of strip Si photonic waveguides (Si-PhWs) with uniform cross-section or photonic-crystal (PhC) Si waveguides (Si-PhCWs), combined with a set of direct-detection receivers. Moreover, the optical field in each channel is the superposition of a continuous-wave nonreturn-to-zero ON-OFF keying modulated signal and a white Gaussian noise. In order to characterize the optical signal propagation in the waveguides, an accurate mathematical model describing all relevant linear and nonlinear optical effects and its linearized version is employed. In addition, two semi-analytical methods, time- and frequency-domain Karhunen-Loève series expansion, are used to assess the system bit-error-rate (BER). Our analysis reveals that Si-PhCWs provide similar performance as Si-PhWs, but for 100× shorter length. Importantly, much worse BER is achieved in Si-PhCWs when one operates in slow-light regime, due to the enhanced linear and nonlinear effects.
We present recent results pertaining to pulse reshaping and optical signal processing using optical nonlinearities of silicon-based tapered photonic wires and photonic crystal waveguides. In particular, we show how nonlinearity and dispersion engineering of tapered photonic wires can be employed to generate optical similaritons and achieve more than 10× pulse compression. We also discuss the properties of four-wave mixing pulse amplification and frequency conversion efficiency in long-period Bragg waveguides and photonic crystal waveguides. Finally, the influence of linear and nonlinear optical effects on the transmission bit-error rate in uniform photonic wires and photonic crystal waveguides made of silicon is discussed.
We demonstrate enhanced conversion efficiency (CE) and parametric amplification of optical pulses via quasiphase- matched four-wave-mixing (FWM) in long-period Bragg waveguides made of silicon. Our study is based on a rigorous theoretical model that describes optical pulse dynamics in a periodically, adiabatically modulated silicon photonic waveguide and a comprehensive set of numerical simulations of pulse interaction in such gratings. More specifically, our theoretical model takes into account all of the relevant linear and nonlinear optical effects, including free-carriers generation, two-photon absorption, and self-phase modulation, as well as modal frequency dispersion up to the fourth-order. Due to its relevance to practical applications, a key issue investigated in our work is the dependence of the efficiency of the FWM process on the waveguide parameters and the operating wavelength. In particular, our analysis suggests that by varying the waveguide width by just a few tens of nanometers the wavelengths of the phase-matched waves can be shifted by hundreds of nanometers. Our numerical simulations show also that, in the anomalous group-velocity dispersion regime, a CE enhancement of more than 20 dB, as compared to the case of a waveguide with constant width, can be easily achieved.
We present a comprehensive study of generation and collision of optical similaritons in sub-micron silicon photonic wire waveguides. Our analysis of optical pulse dynamics in such wave guiding devices is based on a rigorous theoretical model that incorporates all of the relevant linear and nonlinear optical effects, including modal dispersion, free-carrier dispersion and absorption, self-phase modulation, two-photon absorption, frequency dispersion of the optical nonlinearity, and the free-carrier dynamics. In addition to the particular characteristics of the generation of optical similaritons in silicon photonic wires, we also investigate the dependence of the efficiency of this optical process on the physical parameters and temporal profile of the input pulse. The collision of optical similaritons that propagate both in the normal and anomalous dispersion regime is also analyzed. Guided by the target applications of our study, we considered two technologically relevant spectral regions, namely, telecom and mid-IR frequency domains.
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