Polymeric waveguides using oxidized porous silicon cladding for optical amplification

Navarro-Urrios, D., Ghulinyan, M., Bettotti, P., Rigo, E., Oton, C.J., Capuj, N.E., Lahoz, F., Martín, I.R. and Pavesi, L. (2009) Polymeric waveguides using oxidized porous silicon cladding for optical amplification. Optical Materials, 31 (10), 1488-1491. (doi:10.1016/j.optmat.2009.02.008).

Abstract

We report on a new hybrid approach to realize optical slab waveguides for optical amplification purposes. The structure consists of a dye-doped polymer core (PMMA) deposited over an oxidized porous silicon (PS) cladding layer formed on a silicon wafer. The very low refractive index (n = 1.16) achievable in the cladding allows obtaining monomodal behavior with high confinement factors (GTE = 96%) even for very thin cores (400 nm). Optically excited guided luminescence shows stimulated emission, strong line narrowing and a clear threshold and superlinear behavior with pump energy. By means of the variable stripe length (VSL) technique, values of net optical gain up to 113 dB/cm (constant over 3 mm) and absolute amplification values up to 34 dB have been measured at 694 nm when pumping with 80 mJ/cm2 energy pulses. These results validate the use of oxidized PS as a cladding layer in silicon photonics.

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