Enhanced stimulated Raman scattering in slow-light photonic crystal waveguides

We investigate for the first time the enhancement of the stimulated Raman scattering in slow-light Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) photonic crystal line defect waveguides. By applying the Bloch-Floquet formalism to the guided modes in a planar photonic crystal, we develop a formalism that relates the intensity of the down-shifted Stokes signal to the pump intensity and the modal group velocities. The formalism is then applied to two prospective schemes for enhanced stimulated Raman generation in slow-light photonic crystal waveguides. The results demonstrate a maximum factor of 10^4 (66,000) enhancement with respect to SOI channel waveguides. Effects of two photon absorption, intrinsic scattering, and disorder with respect to slow-light Raman generation towards optically-pumped silicon amplifiers and lasers are also discussed.