Nonlinear optical signal processing in CMOS-compatible ultra-silicon-rich nitride devices

Nonlinear phenomena at the 1550nm wavelength are studied in ultra-silicon-rich nitride devices. Photonic crystals in one are demonstrated to introduce 1000x enhancement in the group velocity dispersion properties and a 40x increase in the nonlinear parameter. The large Kerr nonlinearity and negligible two-photon absorption allow strong nonlinear effects including 42.5dB optical parametric gain and Bragg soliton based temporal compression to be demonstrated.