Low-Power Four-Wave Mixing in Deuterated Silicon-Rich Nitride Ring Resonators

We present micro-ring resonators (MRRs) with intrinsic quality factors as high as 135,000 fabricated on a highly nonlinear CMOS-compatible deuterated silicon-rich nitride (SRN:D) platform. The linear refractive index of the film at 1.55 μm is 2.52, and the Kerr nonlinearity is 2.8 × 10
⁻¹⁸
m
²
/W, 10 times higher than stoichiometric silicon nitride. Importantly, absorption from Si-H bonds at the 1.55 μm wavelength region are eliminated in these devices. Low power stimulated Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) is experimentally demonstrated with coupled pump powers as low as 0.5 mW, at which a conversion efficiency of −50.7 dB is achieved. Cascaded FWM is observed at pump powers as low as 10 mW, with an output spectrum spanning 42 nm.