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Efficient photoinduced second-harmonic generation in silicon nitride photonics

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 131–136 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Silicon photonics lacks a second-order nonlinear optical (χ(2)) response in general, because the typical constituent materials are centrosymmetric and lack inversion symmetry, which prohibits χ(2) nonlinear processes such as second-harmonic generation (SHG). Here, we realize high SHG efficiency in silicon photonics by combining a photoinduced effective χ(2) nonlinearity with resonant enhancement and perfect phase matching. We show a conversion efficiency of (2,500 ± 100)% W−1 that is two to four orders of magnitude larger than previous field-induced SHG works. In particular, our devices realize milliwatt-level SHG output powers with up to (22 ± 1)% power conversion efficiency. This demonstration is a breakthrough in realizing efficient χ(2) processes in silicon photonics, and paves the way for further integration of self-referenced frequency combs and optical frequency references.

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Fig. 1: Photoinduced SHG in a Si3N4 microring resonator.
Fig. 2: Device transmission shows perfect phase matching with high-Q resonances.
Fig. 3: Laser detuning to optimize photoinduced SHG in the microring.
Fig. 4: High efficiency is achieved by photoinduced SHG in silicon photonics.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

X.L. thanks L. Vivien for helpful discussions. This work is supported by the DARPA DODOS, ACES and NIST-on-a-chip programmes. X.L. and G.M. acknowledge support under the Cooperative Research Agreement between the University of Maryland and NIST-PML, award no. 70NANB10H193.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division, Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Xiyuan Lu, Gregory Moille, Ashutosh Rao, Daron A. Westly & Kartik Srinivasan

  2. Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics and Maryland NanoCenter, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Xiyuan Lu

  3. Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Gregory Moille & Kartik Srinivasan

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ashutosh Rao

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  1. Xiyuan Lu
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Contributions

X.L. led the design, fabrication and measurement of the SHG devices. G.M., A.R. and K.S. provided assistance with design and measurement. D.A.W. provided assistance with fabrication. All authors participated in the analysis and discussion of results. X.L. and K.S. wrote the manuscript with assistance from all authors, and K.S. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Xiyuan Lu or Kartik Srinivasan.

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Supplementary text, Figs. 1–6 and Table 1.

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Lu, X., Moille, G., Rao, A. et al. Efficient photoinduced second-harmonic generation in silicon nitride photonics. Nat. Photonics 15, 131–136 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00708-4

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