Ultrafast saturable absorption dynamics in hybrid graphene/Si3N4 waveguides

Abstract

We study the nonlinear optical properties of graphene integrated onto Si3N4 waveguides under picosecond and subpicosecond pulsed excitation at telecom wavelength. Saturable absorption of graphene under guided-mode excitation is measured, and the temporal effects related to the photoexcited carrier dynamics in graphene are highlighted. Thereafter, a model of photoexcited carriers in graphene is implemented into the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in order to simulate the pulse propagation across the hybrid graphene/Si3N4 waveguide. This allows us to extract phenomenological parameters of graphene saturable absorption in chip-based devices, which could provide some guidelines for the design of nonlinear elements in photonic integrated circuits.