Chalcogenide Waveguides for Broadband Four Wave Mixing

该计划的目标是演示硫族波导中近红外和中红外波段的宽带波长转换。硫系玻璃相对于二氧化硅具有透明范围宽、折射率高、光学非线性高等特点，是重要的波导芯材料。它们的高非线性可以实现有效的四波混频（FWM），用于各种非线性信号处理应用，包括波长转换和参数放大。智力的优点是在宽带，芯片级的FWM近中红外波长转换和参数放大器的首次演示。更广泛的影响是新的源和放大器选择跨越近红外到中红外，提供动手制造经验，扩大本科和研究生电气工程学生的教育范围，包括代表性不足的群体。应用包括高分辨率分子光谱，温室气体监测，燃烧气体检测（例如甲烷和二氧化硫），工业气体传感，以及基于衰减全反射（ATR）的液相和固相红外分析，通常与芯片上的傅里叶变换红外光谱仪（FTIRs）一起使用。光芯片级处理以及用于环境监测、医疗诊断和国土安全的光传感技术的进步将使社会受益。

The objective of this program is to demonstrate broadband wavelength conversion across the near- and mid-infrared wavelength regions in chalcogenide waveguides. Chalcogenide glasses are important waveguide core materials because of their broad transparency range, high refractive index and high optical nonlinearity relative to silica. Their high nonlinearity can enable efficient four wave mixing (FWM) for a variety of nonlinear signal processing applications including wavelength conversion and parametric amplification. The intellectual merit is in the first demonstration of broadband, chip-scale FWM for near- to mid-infrared wavelength conversion and parametric amplifiers. The broader impacts are new source and amplifier options spanning the near- to mid-infrared and providing hands-on fabrication experience and broadening the educational scope of undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering students, including underrepresented groups. . Applications include high resolution molecular spectroscopy, greenhouse gas monitoring, combustion gas detection (e.g. methane and sulfur dioxide), industrial gas sensing, and liquid and solid phase infrared analysis based on attenuated total reflectance (ATR), typically used with Fourier transform infrared spectrometers (FTIRs), on a chip. Society will benefit through advancements in optical chip-scale processing as well as optical sensing for environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics and homeland security.