Nonlinear Nanophotonics
For
even faster electrical modulation of optical systems, it is desirable to
integrate nonlinear polymer
s with silicon waveguides by dip or spin
coating. We combine the
efficient confinement of
light into small waveguides through the large
refractive index
of silicon with the opportunity to electrically contact the silicon for
electrically active nonlinear devices. One of our first
demonstrations
of this integration was described in “Optical
modulation and detection in slotted Silicon
waveguides”, in which we
describe the electro-optic tuning of
the resonance frequency within
slotted waveguides. If photorefractive material is coated onto a silicon
Mach-Zehnder interferometer, it is also possible to microfabricate
all-optical switches, and we report some of the switching of Mach-Zehnder
interferometers at 2.4 THz in
Terahertz all-optical modulation in a silicon-polymer hybrid system
