Nonlinear Refraction and Absorption in Semiconductor Waveguides
We have an extensive track record of studying and exploiting ultrafast third-order optical nonlinearities in semiconductor waveguides, such as nonlinear refraction (optical Kerr effect) and two-photon absorption. Using the AlGaAs waveguide platform we have demonstrated spectral broadening, all-optical switching, spatial solitons, vector (polarisation) solitons and discrete spatial solitons. Our earlier research is available under Nonlinear Optics in AlGaAs (1990s). We have also investigated the effective third-order nonlinearity arising from cascading optical rectification and Pockel's electro-optic modulation.
More recently we have been studying the AlGaAs superlattice waveguides and using quantum-well intermixing to provide a spatial variation in the nonlinear coefficients.
People
- Prof. David C. Hutchings
- Dr. Marc Sorel
Much of this research has been undertaken in collaboration with Prof. Stewart Aitchison, Prof. Amr Saher Helmy and Dr. Sean Wagner, University of Toronto. The contributions of the EPSRC National Facilties are acknowledged: III-V Technologies, University of Sheffield and University of Surrey Ion Beam Centre.
Publications
- Wagner, S.J., Holmes, B.M., Younis, U., Helmy, A.S., Hutchings, D.C. and Aitchison, J.S. (2009) Controlling third-order nonlinearities by ion-implantation quantum-well intermixing. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 21 (1-4). pp. 85-87.
- Wagner, SJ, Meier, J, Helmy, AS, Aitchison, JS, Sorel, M , and Hutchings, DC (2007) Polarization-dependent nonlinear refraction and two-photon absorption in GaAs/AlAs superlattice waveguides below the half-bandgap. Journal of the Optical Society of America B-optical Physics, 24 . pp. 1557-1563.
- Siviloglou, GA, Suntsov, S, El-Ganainy, R, Iwanow, R, Stegeman, GI, Christodoulides, DN, Morandotti, R, Modotto, D, Locatelli, A, De Angelis, C, Pozzi, F, Stanley, CR , and Sorel, M (2006) Enhanced third-order nonlinear effects in optical AlGaAs nanowires. Optics Express, 14 . pp. 9377-9384. ISSN 1094-4087
- Hutchings, D.C. (2004) Theory of ultrafast nonlinear refraction in semiconductor superlattices. IEEE Journal Of Selected Topics In Quantum Electronics, 10 . pp. 1124-1132.