OPPO-SP for Silicon photonics research

The chip-level all-optical signal processing capability is critical to the development of a new generation of low-power communication systems, and the considerable non-linear optical effects of silicon-based photonic chips provide an important technical approach to solving on-chip optical functions. Although all-optical signal processing chips based on silicon nanostructures in the communication band (near 1550 nm) have been widely reported, the strong two-photon absorption of silicon materials at 1550 nm has significantly limited their application potential.

In order to solve this problem, in recent years, the research of silicon optical chips has gradually moved towards the long wavelength region. When the pump wavelength is greater than 2150 nm, the two-photon absorption effect from silicon materials can be effectively suppressed, so the performance of optical functional chips (especially Conversion efficiency) can be greatly improved. At present, the ultra-fast laser pump source commonly used in silicon photonic chip research is a complex and expensive OPO device based on sapphire solid lasers (typically priced at 1.5-2 million yuan and requires a water-cooled box). In addition, the output power of this type of laser has a significant attenuation trend (usually tens of mW of available power) in the output wavelength region above 2000 nm, so that the peak power does not meet the threshold requirements for infrared nonlinear research. Furthermore, the laser is a free-space output and is not compatible with the single-mode fiber output that used in most photonic chip institutes research. Therefore, the market urgently needs an infrared tunable fiber laser with high cost performance, compact structure and high output power.

Wavelength converter based on nonlinear effect of silicon photon chip(Nat. Photon. 4, 557)

OPPO-SP developed by NPI is a tunable ultrafast laser especially suitable for silicon-based photonic chip research. It has broadband wavelength tunability in the 2 μm band, and can achieve hundred-femtosecond pulse width output at any wavelength in the range of 2000-2350 nm, and the output power is above 300 mW. OPPO-SP is full polarization-maintaining design with fine dispersion management and strict nonlinear effect control. The output end is a standard polarization-maintaining jumper output to ensure the stable operation of the laser and the high efficiency of the following photonic chip coupling. To make it easy for the user, the wavelength tuning can be finely controlled by the front panel knob or a supporting software. OPPO-SP makes up for the lack of silicon-optical research band fiber lasers in the market. It exchanges ultra-high performance-price ratio with functions similar to expensive OPO / OPA systems, and has become a sharp sword in the hands of silicon photonics researchers.It is worth noting that OPPO-SP is also an ideal laser source for the research of infrared supercontinuum and infrared pump-detection.

Typical output Spectrum of OPPO-SP