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Efficient telecom-to-visible spectral translation through ultralow power nonlinear nanophotonics

Nature Photonics volume 13, pages 593–601 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

The ability to spectrally translate lightwave signals in a compact, low-power platform is at the heart of the promise of nonlinear nanophotonic technologies. For example, a device to connect the telecommunications band with visible and short near-infrared wavelengths can enable a connection between high-performance chip-integrated lasers based on scalable nanofabrication technology with atomic systems used for time and frequency metrology. Although second-order nonlinear (χ(2)) systems are the natural approach for bridging such large spectral gaps, here we show that third-order nonlinear (χ(3)) systems, despite their typically much weaker nonlinear response, can realize spectral translation with unprecedented performance. By combining resonant enhancement with nanophotonic mode engineering in a silicon nitride microring resonator, we demonstrate efficient spectral translation of a continuous-wave signal from the telecom band (~1,550 nm) to the visible band (~650 nm) through cavity-enhanced four-wave mixing. We achieve such translation over a wide spectral range >250 THz with a translation efficiency of (30.1 ± 2.8)% and using an ultralow pump power of (329 ± 13) μW. The translation efficiency projects to (274 ± 28)% at 1 mW and is more than an order of magnitude larger than what has been achieved in current nanophotonic devices.

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Fig. 1: Nanophotonic telecom-to-visible spectral translation and efficiency comparison.
Fig. 2: Design for telecom-to-visible spectral translation.
Fig. 3: Assessment of device Q, coupling, and phase and frequency matching.
Fig. 4: Telecom-to-visible nanophotonic spectral translation.
Fig. 5: Comparison of our nanophotonic spectral translation efficiency with state-of-the-art results.

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Data availability

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

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the DARPA DODOS and NIST-on-a-chip programmes. X.L., G.M., Q.L. and A.S. 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, Qing Li, Daron A. Westly, Anshuman Singh, Ashutosh Rao & Kartik Srinivasan

  2. Maryland NanoCenter, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Xiyuan Lu, Gregory Moille, Qing Li, Anshuman Singh & Ashutosh Rao

  3. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Qing Li

  4. Time and Frequency Division, Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA

    Su-Peng Yu, Travis C. Briles & Scott B. Papp

  5. Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Su-Peng Yu, Travis C. Briles & Scott B. Papp

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

    Kartik Srinivasan

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  1. Xiyuan Lu
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Contributions

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

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiyuan Lu or Kartik Srinivasan.

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This file contains more information about the work, Supplementary Figs. 1–5 and Supplementary Table 1.

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Lu, X., Moille, G., Li, Q. et al. Efficient telecom-to-visible spectral translation through ultralow power nonlinear nanophotonics. Nat. Photonics 13, 593–601 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0464-9

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