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Title: Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides

Abstract

Solitons are localized waves formed by a balance of focusing and defocusing effects. These nonlinear waves exist in diverse forms of matter yet exhibit similar properties including stability, periodic recurrence and particle-like trajectories. One important property is soliton fission, a process by which an energetic higher-order soliton breaks apart due to dispersive or nonlinear perturbations. Here we demonstrate through both experiment and theory that nonlinear photocarrier generation can induce soliton fission. Using near-field measurements, we directly observe the nonlinear spatial and temporal evolution of optical pulses in situ in a nanophotonic semiconductor waveguide. We develop an analytic formalism describing the free-carrier dispersion (FCD) perturbation and show the experiment exceeds the minimum threshold by an order of magnitude. We confirm these observations with a numerical nonlinear Schrodinger equation model. Finally, these results provide a fundamental explanation and physical scaling of optical pulse evolution in free-carrier media and could enable improved supercontinuum sources in gas based and integrated semiconductor waveguides.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [3];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Sydney, NSW (Australia); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Nanoscale Materials
  2. FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park (Amsterdam); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Nanoscale Materials
  3. Univ. of Sydney, NSW (Australia)
  4. Thales Research and Technology, Palaiseau (France)
  5. FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park (Amsterdam)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1258598
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS

Citation Formats

Husko, Chad, Wulf, Matthias, Lefrancois, Simon, Combrié, Sylvain, Lehoucq, Gaëlle, De Rossi, Alfredo, Eggleton, Benjamin J., and Kuipers, L. Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1038/ncomms11332.
Husko, Chad, Wulf, Matthias, Lefrancois, Simon, Combrié, Sylvain, Lehoucq, Gaëlle, De Rossi, Alfredo, Eggleton, Benjamin J., & Kuipers, L. Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11332
Husko, Chad, Wulf, Matthias, Lefrancois, Simon, Combrié, Sylvain, Lehoucq, Gaëlle, De Rossi, Alfredo, Eggleton, Benjamin J., and Kuipers, L. 2016. "Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11332. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1258598.
@article{osti_1258598,
title = {Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides},
author = {Husko, Chad and Wulf, Matthias and Lefrancois, Simon and Combrié, Sylvain and Lehoucq, Gaëlle and De Rossi, Alfredo and Eggleton, Benjamin J. and Kuipers, L.},
abstractNote = {Solitons are localized waves formed by a balance of focusing and defocusing effects. These nonlinear waves exist in diverse forms of matter yet exhibit similar properties including stability, periodic recurrence and particle-like trajectories. One important property is soliton fission, a process by which an energetic higher-order soliton breaks apart due to dispersive or nonlinear perturbations. Here we demonstrate through both experiment and theory that nonlinear photocarrier generation can induce soliton fission. Using near-field measurements, we directly observe the nonlinear spatial and temporal evolution of optical pulses in situ in a nanophotonic semiconductor waveguide. We develop an analytic formalism describing the free-carrier dispersion (FCD) perturbation and show the experiment exceeds the minimum threshold by an order of magnitude. We confirm these observations with a numerical nonlinear Schrodinger equation model. Finally, these results provide a fundamental explanation and physical scaling of optical pulse evolution in free-carrier media and could enable improved supercontinuum sources in gas based and integrated semiconductor waveguides.},
doi = {10.1038/ncomms11332},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1258598}, journal = {Nature Communications},
issn = {2041-1723},
number = ,
volume = 7,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Fri Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}

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Cited by: 13 works
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Works referenced in this record:

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Works referencing / citing this record:

Bragg Soliton Compression and Fission on CMOS‐Compatible Ultra‐Silicon‐Rich Nitride
journal, July 2019


Photonic crystal waveguides based on wide-gap semiconductor alloys
journal, February 2017


Nonlinear gallium phosphide nanoscale photonics [Invited]
journal, January 2018


Real-time dynamics and cross-correlation gating spectroscopy of free-carrier Drude slow-light solitons
journal, February 2017


Physical origin of higher-order soliton fission in nanophotonic semiconductor waveguides
journal, November 2018