Conditions for Parametric and Free-Carrier Oscillation in Silicon Ring Cavities

Optical bistability and free carrier dynamics in graphene–silicon photonic crystal cavities

We introduce graphene–silicon hybrid nonlinear devices operating at a few femtojoule cavity circulating energies, including: (1) dualand single-cavity optical bistability; (2) detailed and broadband switching dynamics, and (3) free-carrier and thermal effects in regenerative oscillations. Sub-wavelength nanostructures confine light in a single mode silicon resonator with high Q/V ratio, enablin...

Carrier-induced optical bistability in silicon ring resonators.

We demonstrate optical bistability in a micrometer-sized silicon ring resonator based on the free-carrier dispersion effect in silicon. We measure the transfer function of the resonator showing a hysteresis loop with an input optical power of less than 10 mW. The influence of the thermal optical effect, which is minimized in the experiment by use of nanosecond pulses, is evaluated theoretically...

Ultrashort free-carrier lifetime in low-loss silicon nanowaveguides.

We demonstrate reduction of the free-carrier lifetime in a silicon nanowaveguide from 3 ns to 12.2 ps by applying a reverse bias across an integrated p-i-n diode. This observation represents the shortest free-carrier lifetime demonstrated to date in silicon waveguides. Importantly, the presence of the p-i-n structure does not measurably increase the propagation loss of the waveguide. We derive ...

Near-infrared free carrier absorption in heavily doped silicon

A proposal for highly tunable optical parametric oscillation in silicon micro-resonators.

We propose a novel scheme for continuous-wave pumped optical parametric oscillation (OPO) inside silicon micro-resonators. The proposed scheme not only requires a relative low lasing threshold, but also exhibits extremely broad tunability extending from the telecom band to mid infrared.