Nanophotonic Devices in Silicon for Nonlinear Optics

Silicon s extremely high refractive index and low loss at telecommunications frequencies make it possible for silicon waveguides to confine optical modes to sub-diffraction-limited areas. We can gain control of photons on the nanometer scale, and can force strong interactions with nonlinear waveguide claddings. Taking advantage of these capabilities, it is possible to integrate femtosecond-scale nonlinear optical functionality into silicon chip-scale devices. Under the AFOSR YIP program, we worked to build practical silicon-organic hybrid nonlinear optical devices, including lowvoltage modulators, and to build mid-infrared integrated photonic devices in silicon. In addition, a number of side projects on biosensing and optomechanics bore significant fruit in tenns of high-profile papers. This program produced a number of worldrecord results, as well as 13 papers in peer-reviewed journals.