Silicon photonic slot guides for nonlinear optics

The ultimate goal of nonlinear optics has been all-optical systems in which processing (logic) functions work in tandem with interconnections to carry out processing without electrical conversion. Laser-based nonlinear optics was already demonstrated in the 1961 [1], only months after the 1960 demonstration of the ruby laser [2]. Nonlinear optics has a rich history extending to the present. The reality of nonlinear optics is that electronic based nonlinearities are fast (subpicosecond) but require large electromagnetic fields. Plasmonics and strongly guiding optics (in the present case, silicon photonics) promise nanometric confinement and even guidance of intense optical fields over significant (many wavelength) distances. The optical field enhancement that can be obtained by strong guidance can be sufficient to achieve the magnitudes necessary for nonlinear optics with compact (chip-level) sources.