Electromagnetic modeling of active silicon nanocrystal waveguides

In this paper we propose an electromagnetic analysis of active silicon nano-crystal (Si-nc) waveguide devices. To account for the nonlinearity in the active medium we introduce a four level rate equation model whose parameters are based on experimentally reported material properties. The electromagnetic polarization serves to couple the quantum mechanical and electromagnetic behavior within the ADE-FDTD scheme. The developed modeling tool is used to simulate waveguide amplifiers, enhanced spontaneous emission microcavities, and the temporal lasing dynamics of active Si-nc based devices. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.