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Published June 2007 | public
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Visible continuous emission from a silica microphotonic device by third-harmonic generation

Carmon, Tal ORCID icon
Vahala, Kerry J. ORCID icon

Abstract

Nonlinear harmonic generation is widely used to extend the emission wavelength of laser sources. These devices typically require high peak powers to generate sufficient nonlinear optical response. Here, we demonstrate experimentally and analyse theoretically continuous-wave, visible emission from a silica microresonator on a silicon chip by third-harmonic generation. Emission is observed with pump powers of less than 300 µW, and is verified to scale cubically with pump power. We also observe third-order sum-frequency generation and mixing of the pump with a concomitant Raman laser within the same structure, giving rise to emission of various colours. In addition to providing low-power operation, this result opens the possibility of silicon microphotonic emitters spanning all the way down to the ultraviolet and operating continuously.

Additional Information

© 2007 Nature Publishing Group. Received 11 December 2006; accepted 29 March 2007; published 7 May 2007. We acknowledge helpful discussions with M. Shumate, J. Scheuer and A. Yariv and support from the Caltech Lee Center and DARPA. T.C. acknowledges a fellowship from the Center for the Physics of Information at Caltech. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to K.J.V. Author contributions: T.C. fabricated the devices, carried out the experiments, analysed the data and derived the analytical and numerical calculations. K.J.V. supervised all aspects of this project. Both authors made contributions to the concepts demonstrated and proposed in the article.

Additional details

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August 19, 2023
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October 20, 2023