Nonlinear optics in ultra-silicon-rich nitride devices

Nonlinear optics in ultra-silicon-rich nitride devices

MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XXV

10.1117/12.3083587

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3083587

D. T. H. Tan, J. W. Choi, B-. U. Sohn, E. Sahin, D. K. T. Ng, X. X. Chia, K. Y. K. Ong, G. F. R. Chen, A. Chowdury, X. Wang, Y. Wang, H. Gao

nonlinear integrated optics, Ultra-silicon-rich nitride, bragg solitons

04 March 2026

Tan, D. T. H., Choi, J. W., Sohn, B.-U., Sahin, E., Ng, D. K. T., Chia, X. X., Ong, K. Y. K., Chen, G. F. R., Chowdury, A., Wang, X., Wang, Y., & Gao, H. (2026). Nonlinear optics in ultra-silicon-rich nitride devices. In W. Piyawattanametha, Y.-H. Park, & H. Zappe (Editors), MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XXV. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3083587

Nonlinear optics in silicon-based devices is of particular significance due to their ability to be fabricated using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor processes prolific in electronics, enabling economic, wide scale manufacturability. While the silicon-on-insulator platform has seen significant success in the implementation of large scale photonic integrated circuits, their use for nonlinear optics at telecommunications wavelengths is encumbered by two photon and free-carrier losses. Crystalline silicon has a material band gap of 1.1eV which implies a two-photon edge of 2.2μm. Conversely, stoichiometric silicon nitride has negligible nonlinear losses at telecommunications wavelengths but a considerably lower Kerr nonlinearity than crystalline silicon. Ultra-silicon-rich nitride is a low temperature, chemical vapor deposition grown CMOS-compatible material with an engineered material band gap of 2.1eV, circumventing nonlinear losses at the full telecommunications band. Its high silicon content enables it to maintain a Kerr nonlinearity which is two orders of magnitude larger than in stoichiometric silicon nitride. USRN has been used successfully in a variety of nonlinear optics applications, including high spectro-temporal compression, Bragg soliton phenomena and topological photonics. We report these experimental demonstrations in this paper.

Publisher Copyright

This research / project is supported by the National Research Foundation - NRF Investigatorship
Grant Reference no. : NRF-NRFI08-2022-0003

This research is supported by core funding from: National Semiconductor Translation and Innovation Center
Grant Reference no. : M24W1NS004 & M24W1NS008

Copyright 2026 Society of Photo‑Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this publication for a fee or for commercial purposes, and modification of the contents of the publication are prohibited.

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/23052

10.1117/12.3083587

Institute of Microelectronics