Widely tunable femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on silicon-on-insulator waveguides

A femtosecond optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide is proposed and analyzed numerically. By utilizing split-step Fourier method (SSFM), it is demonstrated that ultra-wide tunable wavelength femtosecond pulse can be realized under the phase matching condition. Due to the interaction between nonlinearity and flexible dispersion design, the output signal wavelength can be tuned from 1645 to 1805 nm and the idler wavelength can be tuned from 1350 to 1456 nm. Moreover, the peak power of the output signal pulse exceeds 10 W from 1700 to 1770 nm with the pump peak power 50 W. The proposed OPO exhibits compact configuration and can find important applications in integrated broadband optical source. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America