Slow light enhancement of four-wave mixing in coupled silicon-on-insulator microrings

The very high nonlinearity of silicon nanophotonic waveguides motivates research into chip-scale nonlinear optics e.g., wavelength conversion via four-wave mixing (FWM). We demonstrate FWM in silicon coupled microrings with a slow light enhanced effective nonlinear parameter γ eff ∼ 3700 (Wm) -1 at a pump wavelength of 1570 nm. Impairments on the wavelength conversion efficiency of these structures, such as linear and nonlinear loss, waveguide and coupler dispersion as well as fabrication imperfections are discussed. Evaluation of the performance of optimized waveguide designs shows coupled resonator waveguides to be a promising platform for highly efficient wavelength converters. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).