Multi-mode microcavity frequency engineering through a shifted grating in a photonic crystal ring

Published

October 26, 2023

Author(s)

Xiyuan Lu, Yi Sun, Ashish Chanana, Usman Javid, Marcelo Davanco, Kartik Srinivasan

Abstract

Frequency engineering of whispering-gallery resonances is essential in microcavity nonlinear optics. The key is to control the frequencies of the cavity modes involved in the underlying nonlinear optical process to satisfy its energy conservation criterion. Compared to the conventional method that tailors dispersion by the cross-sectional geometry, thereby impacting all cavity mode frequencies, grating-assisted microring cavities, often termed as photonic crystal microrings, provide more enabling capabilities through mode-selective frequency control. For example, a simple single period grating added to a microring has been used for single-frequency engineering in Kerr optical parametric oscillation (OPO) and frequency combs. Recently, this approach has been extended to multi-frequency engineering by using multi-period grating functions, but at the cost of increasingly complex grating profiles that require challenging fabrication. Here, we demonstrate a simple approach, which we term as shifted grating multiple mode splitting (SGMMS), where spatial displacement of a single period grating imprinted on the inner boundary of the microring creates a rotational asymmetry that frequency splits multiple adjacent cavity modes. This approach is easy to implement and presents no additional fabrication challenges than an un-shifted grating, and yet is very powerful in providing multi-frequency engineering functionality for nonlinear optics. We showcase an example where SGMMS enables OPO generation across a wide range of pump wavelengths in a normal-dispersion device that otherwise would not support OPO.

Citation

Photonics Research

Volume

11

Issue

11

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.500375

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Keywords

photonic crystal ring, frequency engineering, nonlinear optics, optical parametric oscillation, silicon nitride

Citation

Lu, X. , Sun, Y. , Chanana, A. , Javid, U. , Davanco, M. and Srinivasan, K. (2023), Multi-mode microcavity frequency engineering through a shifted grating in a photonic crystal ring, Photonics Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.500375, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956295 (Accessed May 1, 2024)