4H-SiC microring resonators for nonlinear integrated photonics

We demonstrate enhanced four-wave mixing (FWM) in high-quality factor, high-confinement 4H-SiC microring resonators via continuous-wave FWM. With the large power buildup effect of the microring resonator, −21.7 dB FWM conversion efficiency is achieved with 79 mW pump power. Thanks to the strong light confinement in SiC-oninsulator (SiCOI) waveguides with submicrometer crosssectional dimensions, a high nonlinear parameter wγ of 7.4 0.9 W−1 m−1 is obtained, from which the nonlinear refractive index (n2) of 4H-SiC is estimated to be 6.0 0.6 × 10−19 m2∕W at the telecom wavelengths.

Besides, we are able to engineer the dispersion of a SiCOI waveguide to achieve 3 dB FWM conversion bandwidth of more than 130 nm. This work represents a step toward enabling all-optical signal processing functionalities using highly nonlinear SiCOI waveguides.