C-band wavelength conversion in silicon photonic wire waveguides

We demonstrate C-band wavelength conversion in Si photonic-wire waveguides with submicron cross-section by means of nonresonant, nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) using low-power, cw-laser sources. Our analysis shows that for these deeply scaled Si waveguides, FWM can be observed despite the large phase mismatch imposed by strong waveguide dispersion. The theoretical calculations agree well with proof-of-concept experiments. The nonresonant character of the FWM scheme employed allows to demonstrate frequency tuning of the idler from ∼ 20 GHz to > 100 GHz thus covering several C-band DWDM channels. © 2005 Optical Society of America.