Nonlinear dynamics in Si micro- and nano-photonics

Dr. Oskar J. Painter
California Institute of Technology

Today the gate oxide thickness of modern transistors is roughly 5 atomic layers thick, with 8 metal wire layers required to transport all the electrical signals within a microprocessor chip.  In addition to the increasing latency of such reduced-dimension metal wires, further `` Moore 's Law'' scaling of transistor cost and density is predicted to saturate in the next decade or so[i].  As a result, with growing interest researchers are exploring silicon-based nano- and micro-photonics for the routing and generation of high-bandwidth signals[ii]^,[iii].  However, as with microelectronics, where scaling devices can lead to unintentional interactions and phenomena, scaling of photonic systems can also promote unwanted, and in some cases, unanticipated effects.  In this talk I will describe one such unanticipated effect we have recently observed involving competing nonlinear interactions between free-carriers, phonons, and the light field within a high-Q Si microdisk resonator.  As Si photonic devices evolve further, and the attojoule energy and picosecond timescale are approached, interesting questions arise about the quantization of light and the nonlinear dynamics of such systems.  I will conclude by describing some of the prospects and issues associated with nanophotonic devices operating at the few-photon level.