Terahertz All-Optical Modulation in a Silicon-Polymer Hybrid System
Michael Hochberg, Tom Baehr-Jones, Guangxi Wang, Michael Shearn, Katherine Harvard, Jingdong Liu, Baoquan Chen, Zhengwei Shi, Rhys Lawson, Phil Sullivan, Alex K… 展开作者
Michael Hochberg, Tom Baehr-Jones, Guangxi Wang, Michael Shearn, Katherine Harvard, Jingdong Liu, Baoquan Chen, Zhengwei Shi, Rhys Lawson, Phil Sullivan, Alex K. Y. Jen, Larry Dalton, Axel Scherer
Although Gigahertz-scale free-carrier modulators have been previously demonstrated in silicon, intensity modulators operating at Terahertz speeds have not been reported because of silicon's weak ultrafast optical nonlinearity. We have demonstrated intensity modulation of light with light in a silicon-polymer integrated waveguide device, based on the all-optical Kerr effect - the same ultrafast effect used in four-wave mixing. Direct measurements of time-domain intensity modulation are made at speeds of 10 GHz. We showed experimentally that the ultrafast mechanism of this modulation functions at the optical frequency through spectral measurements, and that intensity modulation at frequencies in excess of 1 THz can be obtained in this device. By integrating optical polymers through evanescent coupling to high-mode-confinement silicon waveguides, we greatly increase the effective nonlinearity of the waveguide for cross-phase modulation. The combination of high mode confinement, multiple integrated optical components, and high nonlinearities produces all-optical ultrafast devices operating at continuous-wave power levels compatible with telecommunication systems. Although far from commercial radio frequency optical modulator standards in terms of extinction, these devices are a first step in development of large-scale integrated ultrafast optical logic in silicon, and are two orders of magnitude faster than previously reported silicon devices.
Graded index microstructured polymer optical fiber incorporating a specially designed air-hole array featuring variable air-hole diameters and inter-hole separation is proposed, fabricated and characterized in view of the fiber potential applications in low-loss, low-dispersion terahertz guidance. The proposed fiber features simultaneously low chromatic and intermodal dispersions, as well as low loss in the terahertz spectral range. We then experimentally demonstrate that proposed fibers exhibit smaller pulse distortion, larger bandwidth and more reliable excitation when compared to the porous…
The results of high-field terahertz transmission experiments on n-doped silicon (carrier concentration of $8.7\times10^{16}$ cm$^{-3}$) are presented. We use terahertz pulses with electric field strengths up to 3.1 MV cm$^{-1}$ and a pulse duration of 700 fs. Huge transmittance enhancement of $\sim$90 times is observed with increasing of the terahertz electric field strengths within the range of 1.5--3.1 MV cm$^{-1}$.
Two highly birefringent polymer terahertz (THz) fibers were proposed in this paper, which were formed with honeycomb cladding and some elliptical air holes in the fiber core. The losses and mode birefringence for two different fibers are investigated by finite-different time-domain method. The results show that fiber 2 can achieve both high birefringence (larger than 0.022) and low confinement loss (0.01 dB/m) in a wide THz frequency range. Moreover, compared with a round solid-core fiber, guiding loss of the THz fiber caused by polymer material absorption can be reduced effectively as a part …
We propose the use of a silicon-core optical fiber for terahertz (THz) waveguide applications. Finite-difference time-domain simulations have been performed based on a cylindrical waveguide with a silicon core and silica cladding. High-resistivity silicon has a flat dispersion over a 0.1 - 3 THz range, making it viable for propagation of tunable narrowband CW THz and possibly broadband picosecond pules of THz radiation. Simulations show the propagation dynamics and the integrated intensity, from which transverse mode profiles and absorption lengths are extraced. It is found that for 140 - 250 …
Fibonacci or bifocal terahertz (THz) imaging is demonstrated experimentally employing silicon diffractive zone plate (SDZP) in a continuous wave mode. Images simultaneously recorded in two different planes are exhibited at 0.6 THz frequency with the spatial resolution of wavelength. Multi-focus imaging operation of the Fibonacci lens is compared with a performance of the conventional silicon phase zone plate. Spatial profiles and focal depth features are discussed varying the frequency from 0.3 THz to 0.6 THz. Good agreement between experimental results and simulation data is revealed.
We demonstrate ultrafast resonance switching of terahertz metamaterials through optical excitation of radiation damaged silicon placed in the gap of single split gap ring resonator. We observe the dynamic switching OFF of the fundamental resonance mode on a time scale of 4 picoseconds (ps) followed by the switching ON of the same resonance after 20 ps. Electric field distributions in the metamaterials unit cell derived through numerical simulations clearly support our experimental observations, showing that the high electric field at the resonator gaps, responsible for inductive-capacitive res…
Carrier conversion from terahertz wave to dual-wavelength near-infrared light injection-locking to optical comb using asynchronous nonpolarimetric electro-optic downconversion with electro-optic polymer modulator
We report on the first experimental demonstration of terahertz (THz) whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) with an ultra high quality (Q) factor of $1.5 \times {10}^{4}$ at 0.62THz. The WGMs are observed in a high resistivity float zone silicon (HRFZ-Si) spherical resonator coupled to a sub-wavelength silica waveguide. A detailed analysis of the coherent continuous wave (CW) THz spectroscopy measurements combined with a numerical model based on Mie-Debye-Aden-Kerker (MDAK) theory allows to unambiguously identify the observed higher order radial THz WGMs.
Optoelectronic signal processing offers great potential for generation and detection of ultra-broadband waveforms in the THz range, so-called T-waves. However, fabrication of the underlying high-speed photodiodes and photoconductors still relies on complex processes using dedicated III-V semiconductor substrates. This severely limits the application potential of current T-wave transmitters and receivers, in particular when it comes to highly integrated systems that combine photonic signal processing with optoelectronic conversion to THz frequencies. In this paper, we demonstrate that these lim…
We design and demonstrate a compact and low-power band-engineered electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled silicon slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) modulator. The EO polymer is engineered for large EO activity and near-infrared transparency. A PCW step coupler is used for optimum coupling to the slow-light mode of the band-engineered PCW. The half-wave switching-voltage is measured to be Vπ=0.97+-0.02V over optical spectrum range of 8nm, corresponding to the effective in-device r33 of 1190pm/V and Vπ L of 0.291+-0.006V mm in a push-pull configuration. Excluding the slow-light effect, we estima…
We design and demonstrate a compact, low-power, low-dispersion and broadband optical modulator based on electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled silicon slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW). The EO polymer is engineered for large EO activity and near-infrared transparency. The half-wave switching-voltage is measured to be Vπ=0.97V over optical spectrum range of 8nm, corresponding to a record-high effective in-device r33 of 1190pm/V and Vπ L of 0.291Vmm in a push-pull configuration. Excluding the slow-light effect, we estimate the EO polymer is poled with an ultra-high efficiency of 89pm/V in the s…
Silicon-organic hybrid integrated devices have emerging applications ranging from high-speed optical interconnects to photonic electromagnetic-field sensors. Silicon slot photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) filled with electro-optic (EO) polymers combine the slow-light effect in PCWs with the high polarizability of EO polymers, which promises the realization of high-performance optical modulators. In this paper, a broadband, power-efficient, low-dispersion, and compact optical modulator based on an EO polymer filled silicon slot PCW is presented. A small voltage-length product of Vπ*L=0.282Vmm …
Hyperuniform disordered networks belong to a peculiar class of structured materials predicted to possess partial and complete photonic bandgaps for relatively moderate refractive index contrasts. The practical realization of such photonic designer materials is challenging however, as it requires control over a multi-step fabcrication process on optical length scales. Here we report the direct-laser writing of hyperuniform polymeric templates followed by a silicon double inversion procedure leading to high quality network structures made of polycrystalline silicon. We observe a pronounced gap i…
A novel terahertz hybrid waveguide chip consisting of silicon photonic crystals sandwiched in parallel gold plates is developed. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the hybrid waveguide offers a wide single-mode transmission window with low group velocity dispersion and low loss. This compact, substrate-free terahertz chip would play a significant role in broadband, dense-integrated, multi-functional terahertz systems.
The accelerating increase in information traffic demands the expansion of optical access network systems that require cost reduction of optical and photonic components. Low cost, ease of fabrication, and integration capabilities of low optical-loss polymers make them attractive for photonic applications. In addition to passive wave-guiding components, electro-optic (EO) polymers consisting of a polymeric matrix doped with organic nonlinear chromophores have enabled wide-RF-bandwidth and low-power optical modulators. Beside board level passive and active optical components, compact on-chip modu…
Terahertz technology is largely dependent upon planar on-chip antennas that radiate downwards through the substrate, and so an effective means to interface these antennas with integrated waveguides is an attractive prospect. We present a viable methodology for backside coupling between a terahertz oscillator chip and a broadband all-intrinsic-silicon dielectric waveguide. Our investigation employs resonant tunneling diodes as compact two-terminal electronic terahertz oscillators, and terahertz waves are observed from 270 GHz to 409 GHz. The fact that this power is accessed via a curved length …
We present the design of a compact and highly sensitive electric field sensor based on a bowtie antenna-coupled slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW). An electro-optic (EO) polymer with a large EO coefficient, r33=100pm/V, is used to refill the PCW slot and air holes. Bowtie-shaped electrodes are used as both poling electrodes and as receiving antenna. The slow-light effect in the PCW is used to increase the effective in-device r33>1000pm/V. The slot PCW is designed for low-dispersion slow light propagation, maximum poling efficiency as well as optical mode confinement inside the EO polymer. T…
Terahertz (THz) imaging has the ability to see through otherwise opaque materials. However, due to the long wavelengths of THz radiation (λ=300μm at 1THz), far-field THz imaging techniques are heavily outperformed by optical imaging in regards to the obtained resolution. In this work we demonstrate near-field THz imaging with a single-pixel detector. We project a time-varying optical mask onto a silicon wafer which is used to spatially modulate a pulse of THz radiation. The far-field transmission corresponding to each mask is recorded by a single element detector and this data is used to recon…
Terahertz (THz) technology is rapidly evolving, and the advancement of data and information processing devices is essential. Silicon THz microresonators provide perfect platforms to develop compact and integrated devices that could transform THz technology. Here we present a systematic study on the key figure of merit of silicon THz disc microresonators - the quality factor (Q-factor) - in dependence on the substrate's resistivity. Our results show that the Q-factor depends linearly on the resistivity and a variation in resistivity from 10k$Ω$cm to 15k$Ω$cm changes the Q-factor from 50k to 76k…
The band structure of an Si inverse diamond structure whose lattice point shape was vacant regular octahedrons, was calculated using plane wave expansion method. A complete photonic band gap was theoretically confirmed at around 0.4 THz. It is said that three-dimensional photonic crystals have no polarization anisotropy in photonic band gap (stop gap, stop band) of high symmetry points in normal incidence. However, it was experimentally confirmed that the polarization orientation of a reflected wave was different from that of an incident wave, [I$(X,Y)$], where $(X,Y)$ is the coordinate system…
Electromagnetic (EM) wave detection over a large spectrum has recently attracted significant amount of attention. Traditional electronic EM wave sensors use large metallic probes which distort the field to be measured and also have strict limitations on the detectable RF bandwidth. To address these problems, integrated photonic EM wave sensors have been developed to provide high sensitivity and broad bandwidth. Previously we demonstrated a compact, broadband, and sensitive integrated photonic EM wave sensor, consisting of an organic electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled silicon slot photonic cry…
This letter proposes a 50:50 TE terahertz (THz) power splitter based on digitized metamaterials. The device is optimized using particle swarm optimization algorithm. The structure of the digitized metamaterials contains circular air holes in silicon slab which are deposited on silicon dioxide substrate. The optimized structure shows insertion loss (IL) of less than 3.9 dB over the frequency range of 0.9-1.1 THz. The proposed device has the footprint of 400 $\times$ 350 $μ$m$^2$. The proposed device has excellent merits such as compactness, efficient, all-dielectric, and compatible with CMOS fa…
We present optically tunable magnetic 3D metamaterials at terahertz (THz) frequencies which exhibit a tuning range of ~30% of the resonance frequency. This is accomplished by fabricating 3D array structures consisting of double-split-ring resonators (DSRRs) on silicon-on-sapphire, fabricated using multilayer electroplating. Photoexcitation of free carriers in the silicon within the capacitive region of the DSRR results in a red-shift of the resonant frequency from 1.74 THz to 1.16 THz. The observed frequency shift leads to a transition from a magnetic-to-bianisotropic response as verified thro…
Room-temperature graphene sub-terahertz detector integrated on a silicon dielectric waveguide
National Research University Higher School of Economics（国立高等经济大学）；Moscow Pedagogical State University（莫斯科师范大学）；Programmable Functional Materials Lab, Center for Neurophysics and Neuromorphic Technologies（可编程功能材料实验室，神经物理与神经形态技术中心）；Center for Advanced Studies（高级研究中心）；Russian Quantum Center（俄罗斯量子中心）
Recently, metasurfaces have gained popularity due to their ability to offer a spatially varying phase response, low intrinsic losses and high transmittance. Here, we demonstrate numerically and experimentally a silicon metasurface at THz frequencies that converts a Gaussian beam into a Vortex beam independent of the polarization of the incident beam. The metasurface consists of an array of sub-wavelength silicon cross resonators made of a high refractive index material on substrates such as sapphire and CaF$_2$ that are transparent at IR-THz spectral range. With these substrates, it is possibl…
Polynorbornene-based decomposable polymer which can be patterned with ultraviolet or electron-beam radiation is used to create micrometer-scale fluidic channels. Silicon nitride substrates are used to fabricate nanophotonic wavegide and resonators operating in the visible range of the spectrum. Fluidic channels generated by thermally decomposing the polymer through the oxide cladding is used to deliver ultra-small amounts of florescent samples to the optical sensors.
Terahertz (THz)-based electron manipulation has recently been shown to hold tremendous promise as a technology for manipulating and driving the next-generation of compact ultrafast electron sources. Here, we demonstrate an ultrafast electron diffractometer with THz-driven pulse compression. The electron bunches from a conventional DC gun are compressed by a factor of 10 and reach a duration of ~180 fs (FWHM) with 10,000 electrons/pulse at a 1 kHz repetition rate. The resulting ultrafast electron source is used in a proof-of-principle experiment to probe the photoinduced dynamics of single-crys…
Here we perform a series of time-resolved experiments where a 100 fs pump pulse is tuned between 528 nm and 555 nm, across the second indirect gap of intrinsic silicon at ~540 nm which involves electrons in a higher-lying conduction band with minimum at the L point. The photo-injected carriers, after inter- and intra-band relaxations are complete, are subsequently probed with high-field single-cycle terahertz radiation. When the energy of the pump pulses exceeds the second indirect gap, the probed terahertz absorption decreases by a factor 2.7$\pm$0.2. We suggest that this dramatic change coul…
Superconducting quantum circuits are one of the leading quantum computing platforms. To advance superconducting quantum computing to a point of practical importance, it is critical to identify and address material imperfections that lead to decoherence. Here, we use terahertz Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) to probe the local dielectric properties and carrier concentrations of wet-etched aluminum resonators on silicon, one of the most characteristic components of the superconducting quantum processors. Using a recently developed vector calibration technique, we extract the THz pe…
We present a micro-mechanical terahertz (THz) detector fabricated on a silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate and operating at room-temperature. The device is based on a U-shaped cantilever of micrometric size, on top of which two aluminum half-wave dipole antennas are deposited. This produces an absorption extending over the $\sim 2-3.5$THz frequency range. Due to the different thermal expansion coefficients of silicon and aluminum, the absorbed radiation induces a deformation of the cantilever, which is read out optically using a $1.5μ$m laser diode. By illuminating the detector with an amplit…
Platforms for all-optical computing possess photonic circuits made of silicon-based channels, metal wires or optical fibers, etc. However, such solid waveguides suffer from the lack of reversibility and reconfigurability if facing the next generation of light-guiding-light (LGL) computing scheme, which envisions circuitry-free and rapidly reconfigurable systems powered by dynamic interactions between light beams. Here, we proposed the ubiquitous air as a restorable LGL signal manipulation medium with transient air-plasma waveguide circuits. Briefly, by focusing femtosecond laser beams in the f…
Frequency domain spectroscopy allows an experimenter to establish optical properties of solids in a wide frequency band including the technically challenging 10 THz region, and in other bands enables metrological comparison between competing techniques. We advance a method for extracting the optical properties of high-index solids using only transmission-mode frequency domain spectroscopy of plane-parallel Fabry-Perot optical flats. We show that different data processing techniques yield different kinds of systematic error, and that some commonly used techniques have inherent systematic errors…
Lowering the operating voltage of electrooptic modulators is desirable for a variety of applications, most notably in analog photonics , and digital data communications . In particular for digital systems such as CPUs, it is desirable to develop modulators that are both temperature-insensitive and compatible with typically sub-2V CMOS electronics ; however, drive voltages in silicon-based MZIs currently exceed 6.5V . Here we show an MZI modulator based on an electrooptic polymer-clad silicon slot waveguide, with a halfwave voltage of only 0.69V, and a bandwidth of 500 MHz. We also show that th…
It was demonstrated that optical modulation together with simultaneous terahertz (THz) imaging application enables an increase in contrast by an order of magnitude illustrating hence the technique as convenient contactless tool for characterization of graphene deposited on high-resistivity silicon substrates. It was shown that the single- and double-layer graphene can be discriminated and characterized via variation of THz image contrast using a discrete frequency in a continuous wave mode. Modulation depth of 45 % has been reached, the contrast variation from 0.16 up to 0.23 is exposed under …
Drude model successfully quantifies the optical constants for bulk matter, but it is not suitable for subwavelength objects. In this paper, terahertz near-field optical microscopy and finite element simulation are used to study gold patches fabricated by Gallium etching. Electron transport is discovered in determining the optical signal strength. The signal from substrate is more complicated and still not fully understood. As the etching area decreases, near-field interaction is not dominated by doping concentration, and a higher signal is observed near connected metals. With the help of simul…
