Supercontinuum generation in ICP-CVD silicon-rich silicon nitride waveguides

Abstract

Inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition was used to obtain thin films of siliconrich silicon nitride with a refractive index of 2.44 at optical telecommunications wavelength. The resulting layer was patterned into a 1.6 μm wide waveguide and tested for its nonlinear behavior using a 90-fs all-fiber laser centered at 1630 nm. A significant spectral broadening is demonstrated with a supercontinuum generation from 1300 nm to 1985 nm. Simulations are in fair agreement with the experiments, assuming a nonlinear index of 2 x 10-18 m2/W.