Phase Resolved Observations of Temporal Soliton Pulse Propagation in Silicon Nanowires

An effort was conducted to study temporal soliton pulse propagation in silicon nano-waveguides. These nonlinear phenomenas were studied both numerically and experimentally with phase-resolved Frequency Resolved Optical Gating. Soliton pulse broadening, as well as pulse splitting from two-photon absorption, was observed experimentally, and the simulations matched all of the experimental results. Further simulations with the validated model have demonstrated that compression can be observed in centimeter-length waveguides. This study has demonstrated the feasibility of self-sustaining soliton pulse propagation at substantially shorter length scales than optical fibers, which offers much potential applications with regards to all-optical data transfer and computing.