Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 51: Photonic crystals II

HL 51.3: Talk

Friday, March 27, 2009, 10:45–11:00, BEY 154

Tailoring the second-order nonlinear optical properties of silicon by application of inhomogeneous strain — •Clemens Schriever, Daniel Pergande, and Ralf B. Wehrspohn — Institut für Physik, Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

Silicon has become a promising candidate for integrated optics mainly due to its highly optimized CMOS processing technology and its suitable optical properties at telecommunication wavelengths. The difficulty of integrating silicon into active optoelectronics, where electrical and optical functionalities are combined in a monolithic device, is due to its limited active optical properties. Because of the materials centrosymmetric lattice structure silicon does not exhibit a second-order nonlinear susceptibility and is therefore not suitable for higher-order non-linear optical processes. One possibility to overcome this limitation is to break the centrosymmetry of the atomic lattice. We present first numerical studies and analytical approximations on how inhomogeneous strain can be used to create non-linear optical properties. The variation of magnitude and direction of the applied strain using realistic values of e.g. highly strained SiN-layers allows tailoring the nonlinear optical properties of a silicon photonic device.