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Diamond nonlinear photonics

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 369–374 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Despite progress towards integrated diamond photonics1,2,3,4, studies of optical nonlinearities in diamond have been limited to Raman scattering in bulk samples5. Diamond nonlinear photonics, however, could enable efficient, in situ frequency conversion of single photons emitted by diamond's colour centres6,7, as well as stable and high-power frequency microcombs8 operating at new wavelengths. Both of these applications depend crucially on efficient four-wave mixing processes enabled by diamond's third-order nonlinearity. Here, we have realized a diamond nonlinear photonics platform by demonstrating optical parametric oscillation via four-wave mixing using single-crystal ultrahigh-quality-factor (1 × 106) diamond ring resonators operating at telecom wavelengths. Threshold powers as low as 20 mW are measured, and up to 20 new wavelengths are generated from a single-frequency pump laser. We also report the first measurement of the nonlinear refractive index due to the third-order nonlinearity in diamond at telecom wavelengths.

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Figure 1: Integrated ultrahigh-Q SCD ring resonators.
Figure 2: OPO spectrum as a function of blue-detuning from resonance.
Figure 3: OPO spectra for different pump wavelengths.
Figure 4: Parametric oscillation threshold and its dependence on Q-factor.
Figure 5: Broadband anomalous dispersion of diamond waveguides embedded in silica.

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Acknowledgements

Devices were fabricated in the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) at Harvard. The authors thank Z. Lin for the single-photon conversion estimates, T. Kippenberg, R. Walsworth and M. Lukin for discussions, and D. Twitchen and M. Markham from Element Six for help with diamond samples. B.J.M.H. acknowledges support from the Harvard Quantum Optics Center (HQOC). This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (ECCS-1202157), AFOSR MURI (grant no. FA9550-12-1-0025) and the DARPA QuINESS programme.

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Author notes

  1. I. Bulu & P. Deotare

    Present address: Present address: Schlumberger – Doll Research Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (I.B.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (P.D.),

  2. B. J. M. Hausmann, I. Bulu and V. Venkataraman: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    B. J. M. Hausmann, I. Bulu, V. Venkataraman, P. Deotare & M. Lončar

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  5. M. Lončar
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Contributions

B.J.M.H., I.B. and V.V. contributed equally to this work. M.L. and I.B. conceived and, together with B.J.M.H. and V.V., designed the experiment. The theoretical studies, numerical modelling and design were carried out by I.B. and V.V. Devices were fabricated by B.J.M.H., V.V. and P.D., who also performed the experiments. Data were analysed by B.J.M.H. and V.V. and discussed by all authors. B.J.M.H., V.V. and M.L. wrote the manuscript in discussion with all authors. M.L. is the principal investigator of the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Lončar.

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Hausmann, B., Bulu, I., Venkataraman, V. et al. Diamond nonlinear photonics. Nature Photon 8, 369–374 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.72

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