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Temporal solitons and pulse compression in photonic crystal waveguides

Nature Photonics volume 4, pages 862–868 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Solitons are nonlinear waves that exhibit invariant or recurrent behaviour as they propagate. Precise control of dispersion and nonlinear effects governs soliton propagation and, through the formation of higher-order solitons, permits pulse compression. In recent years the development of photonic crystals—highly dispersive periodic dielectric media—has attracted a great deal of attention due to the facility to engineer and enhance both their nonlinear and dispersive effects. In this Article, we demonstrate the first experimental observations of optical solitons and pulse compression in ∼1-mm-long photonic crystal waveguides. Suppression of two-photon absorption in the GaInP material is crucial to these observations. Compression of 3-ps pulses to a minimum duration of 580 fs with a simultaneously low pulse energy of ∼20 pJ is achieved. These small-footprint devices open up the possibility of transferring soliton applications into integrated photonic chips.

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Figure 1: Dispersion and slow-light properties of the GaInP PhCWG sample.
Figure 2: Soliton-based pulse compression at coupled pulse energies of 22 pJ or less in 1.3-mm-long PhCWGs.
Figure 3: Measurements demonstrating optical soliton compression.
Figure 4: Comparison of nonlinear Schrödinger equation model with experimental data.
Figure 5: Measurements demonstrating optical soliton formation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the European Commission GOSPEL project (219299) and the French Research Agency project L2CP (S.C., P.C. and A.D.R.), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (0747787) and ECCS (0725707) (C.A.H. and C.W.W.), the Fulbright Foundation (C.A.H.), and the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (C.W.W.). The authors acknowledge valuable discussions with E. Ippen, F. Kaertner, G. Eisentstein and S. Trillo. The authors thank Q.-V. Tran for his contributions to the development of the PhC technology in Thales, O. Parillaud, A. Shen and F. Van Dijk (Alcatel-Thales III–V Lab), K. Lasri and U. Ben Ami (Optisiv), and F. Raineri and R. Raj (CNRS-LPN).

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Author notes

  1. P. Colman, C. Husko and S. Combrié: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thales Research and Technology, Route Départementale 128, Palaiseau, 91767, France

    P. Colman, C. Husko, S. Combrié & A. De Rossi

  2. Optical Nanostructures Laboratory, Center for Integrated Science and Engineering, Solid-State Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, 10027, New York, USA

    C. Husko & C. W. Wong

  3. Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures (CNRS UPR 20), Route de Nozay, Marcoussis, 91460, France

    P. Colman & I. Sagnes

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  1. P. Colman
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Contributions

P.C., S.C., A.D.R. and C.H. performed the experiments. S.C. and I.S. fabricated the photonic chips, which were designed by S.C. and P.C. A.D.R., P.C. and C.H. performed the modelling. C.H., A.D.R. and C.W.W. prepared the manuscript. A.D.R., I.S. and C.W.W. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to C. W. Wong or A. De Rossi.

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Colman, P., Husko, C., Combrié, S. et al. Temporal solitons and pulse compression in photonic crystal waveguides. Nature Photon 4, 862–868 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2010.261

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