Coherent ultra-violet to near-infrared generation in silica ridge waveguides.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28067233.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms13922 and PMC identifier 5227738.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Short duration, intense pulses of light can experience dramatic spectral broadening when propagating through lengths of optical fibre. This continuum generation process is caused by a combination of nonlinear optical effects including the formation of dispersive waves. Optical analogues of Cherenkov radiation, these waves allow a pulse to radiate power into a distant spectral region. In this work, efficient and coherent dispersive wave generation of visible to ultraviolet light is demonstrated in silica waveguides on a silicon chip. Unlike fibre broadeners, the arrays provide a wide range of emission wavelength choices on a single, compact chip. This new capability is used to simplify offset frequency measurements of a mode-locked frequency comb. The arrays can also enable mode-locked lasers to attain unprecedented tunable spectral reach for spectroscopy, bioimaging, tomography and metrology.