GO properties. Figure 1(a) illustrates the atomic structure and bandgap of GO, which is a derivative of graphene. Unlike graphene, which consists solely of sp2-hybridized carbon atoms, GO contains various oxygen-containing functional groups (OCFGs) such as hydroxyl, carboxyl, and carbonyl groups12. Some of the carbon atoms in GO are sp3-hybridized through σ-bonding with the OCFGs, resulting in a heterogeneous structure. In contrast to graphene, which has a zero bandgap, GO has an opened bandgap resulting from the isolated sp2 domains within the sp3 C–O matrix. The bandgap of GO typically falls between 2.1 eV and 3.6 eV38, resulting in both low linear light absorption and low nonlinear TPA at near-infrared wavelengths that are attractive for nonlinear optical applications54. Moreover, the material properties of GO can be tuned by manipulating the OCFGs to engineer its bandgap, which has enabled a range of photonic, electronic, and optoelectronic applications12.
Figure 1(b) illustrates the principle of signal amplification based on an optical parametric process61. In this process, when pump and idler photons travel collinearly through a nonlinear optical medium, a pump photon excites a virtual energy level. The decay of this energy level is stimulated by a signal photon, resulting in the emission of an identical second signal photon and an idler photon, while conserving both energy and momentum. In processes that involve optical absorption, such as photoluminescence and TPA, real photogenerated carriers are involved, which can alter the quiescent material nonlinear response12,27. In contrast, the optical parametric process operates by virtual excitation of carriers without creating photogenerated carriers. This makes it quasi-instantaneous, with ultrafast response times on the order of femtoseconds1,54. We note that although the parametric gain itself is almost instantaneous, when influenced by nonlinear absorption with much slower recovery times such as that induced by free carriers in silicon27, the net parametric gain can accordingly have a slow time response component.
Device design and fabrication. Figure 1(c) illustrates the schematic of a Si3N4 waveguide integrated with a single layer GO film. Compared to silicon that has a small (indirect) bandgap of ~ 1.1 eV27, Si3N4 has a large bandgap of ~ 5.0 eV36 that yields low TPA in the near-infrared region. To enable the interaction between the GO film and the evanescent field of the waveguide mode, a portion of the silica upper cladding was removed to allow for the GO film to be coated on the top surface of the Si3N4 waveguide. Figure 1(d) shows a microscopic image of the fabricated Si3N4 chip integrated with a single layer GO film. The successful coating of the GO film is confirmed by the presence of the representative D (1345 cm-1) and G (1590 cm-1) peaks in the measured Raman spectrum, as shown in Fig. 1(e). First, we fabricated low-loss Si3N4 waveguides via CMOS-compatible processes (see Methods). Next, we coated the waveguides with 2D GO films using a transfer-free, solution-based coating method (see Methods). This approach allows for large-area, layer-by-layer film coating with high repeatability and compatibility with various integrated material platforms12,38,62. The thickness of the GO film, characterized via atomic force microscopy measurements, was ~ 2 nm. The high transmittance and excellent morphology of the fabricated device demonstrate that our GO coating method, based on self-assembly via electrostatic attachment, can achieve conformal film coating in the window opening area without any noticeable wrinkling or stretching. This offers advantages compared to film transfer techniques commonly used for coating other 2D materials like graphene and TMDCs19. The length and position of the GO films can be easily controlled by adjusting the length and position of the windows opened on the silica upper cladding, which provides high flexibility for optimizing the performance of the hybrid waveguides by altering the GO film parameters.
Figure 1(f) shows the dispersion D of the uncoated waveguide and the hybrid waveguides with 1 and 2 layers of GO, calculated with commercial mode solving software using the materials’ refractive indices measured by spectral ellipsometry. The Si3N4 waveguides in all these devices had a cross section of 1.60 µm × 0.72 µm, and the inset in Fig. 1(f) depicts the transverse electric (TE) mode profile of the hybrid waveguide with 1 layer of GO. The interaction between the highly nonlinear GO film and the waveguide’s evanescent field enhances the nonlinear optical response of the hybrid waveguide, which is the foundation for improving the OPA performance. We selected TE-polarization for our subsequent measurements since it supports in-plane interaction between the waveguide’s evanescent field and the GO film, which is much stronger than the out-of-plane interaction due to the significant optical anisotropy in 2D materials63,64. In Fig. 1(f), it can be observed that all three waveguides exhibit anomalous dispersion, which is crucial for reducing phase mismatch and improving the parametric gain in the optical parametric process. Upon incorporating 1 layer of GO, the hybrid waveguide shows a slightly increased anomalous dispersion compared to waveguides without GO. For the hybrid waveguides with 2 layers of GO, the anomalous dispersion is further enhanced.
Loss measurements. The coating of GO films onto Si3N4 waveguides introduces extra linear and nonlinear loss. Before the OPA measurements, we used the experimental setup in Figure S1 of the Supplementary Information to characterize the linear and nonlinear loss of the fabricated devices. Fiber-to-chip coupling was achieved via lensed fibers butt coupled to inverse-taper couplers at both ends of the Si3N4 waveguides. The coupling loss was ~ 4.2 dB / facet. We measured three devices, including the uncoated Si3N4 waveguide and hybrid waveguides with 1 and 2 layers of GO. The Si3N4 waveguides in these devices were all ~ 20 mm in length, while for the hybrid waveguides, windows with a length of ~ 1.4 mm were opened at a distance of ~ 0.7 mm from the input port. In our following discussion, the input light power quoted refers to the power coupled into the devices, with the fiber-to-chip coupling loss being excluded.
Figure 2. Experimental results for loss measurements. (a) Measured insertion loss versus wavelength of input continuous-wave (CW) light. The input CW power is ~ 1 mW. (b) Measured insertion loss versus input CW power. The input CW wavelength is ~ 1550 nm. (c) Measured insertion loss versus peak power Ppeak of 180-fs optical pulses. (d) Excess propagation loss induced by SA of GO ΔSA versus Ppeak extracted from (c). In (a) – (d), the curves for GO-0, GO-1, and GO-2 show the results for the uncoated Si3N4 waveguides, and the hybrid waveguides with 1 and 2 layers of GO, respectively.
The linear loss was measured using continuous-wave (CW) light with a power of ~ 1 mW. Figure 2a shows the insertion loss of the fabricated devices versus wavelength. All devices exhibited nearly a flat spectral response, which suggests the absence of any material absorption or coupling loss that would generate a strong wavelength dependence. By using a cut-back method65, we obtained a propagation loss of ~ 0.5 dB/cm for the Si3N4 waveguides buried in silica cladding. By comparing the Si3N4 waveguides with and without opened windows in the silica cladding, we deduced a higher propagation loss of ~ 3.0 dB/cm for the Si3N4 waveguides in the opened window area, which can be attributed to the mitigating effect of the silica cladding on the Si3N4 surface roughness. Finally, using these values and the measured insertion loss of the hybrid waveguides, we extracted an excess propagation loss induced by the GO films of ~ 3.1 dB/cm and ~ 6.3 dB/cm for the 1- and 2-layer devices, respectively. Such a loss induced by the GO films is about 2 orders of magnitude lower than Si3N4 waveguides integrated with graphene films66,67, which can be attributed to the large bandgap of GO, resulting in low light absorption at near infrared wavelengths. This is a crucial advantage of GO in OPA applications where low loss is required to achieve a high net parametric gain.
Figure 2b shows the measured insertion loss versus input CW power at a wavelength of ~ 1550 nm. All devices showed no significant variation in insertion loss when the power was below 30 mW, indicating that the power-dependent loss induced by photo-thermal changes in the GO films was negligible within this range. This observation is consistent with our previous results where photo-thermal changes were only observed for average powers above 40 mW56,68.
The measurement of nonlinear loss was conducted using a fiber pulsed laser (FPL) capable of generating nearly Fourier-transform limited femtosecond optical pulses centered around 1557 nm. The pulse duration and repetition rate were ~ 180 fs and ~ 60 MHz, respectively. Figure 2c shows the measured insertion loss versus pulse peak power Ppeak. The average power of the femtosecond optical pulses was adjusted using a variable optical attenuator, ranging from 0.32 mW to 1.94 mW, which corresponds to peak powers ranging from 30 W to 180 W. The insertion loss of the hybrid waveguides decreased as the pulse peak power increased, with the 2-layer device exhibiting a more significant decrease than the 1-layer device. In contrast, the insertion loss of the uncoated Si3N4 waveguide remained constant. These results reflect that the hybrid waveguides experienced saturable absorption (SA) in the GO films, consistent with observations in waveguides incorporating graphene66,69. Additionally, we note that the loss changes observed were not present when using CW light with equivalent average powers. This suggests that the changes are specifically induced by optical pulses with high peak powers. In GO, the SA can be induced by the bleaching of the ground states that are associated with sp2 orbitals (e.g., with an energy gap of ~ 0.5 eV55) as well as the defect states. Figure 2d shows the SA-induced excess propagation loss (∆SA) versus pulse peak power Ppeak, which was extracted from the result in Fig. 2c, with the linear propagation loss being excluded. The negative values of ∆SA indicate that there is a decrease in loss as the peak power increases in the SA process. Such decrease in loss is beneficial for increasing the pump peak power in the OPA process, which helps improve the parametric gain.
OPA experiments. We conducted OPA experiments using the same devices that were fabricated and used for the loss measurements. A schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 3. To generate the pump light required for the OPA experiments, we employed the same FPL that was used for the loss measurements. On the other hand, the signal light was generated through amplification of the CW light from a tunable laser. The pulsed pump and the CW signal were combined by a broadband 50:50 coupler and sent to the device under test (DUT) for the optical parametric process. The polarization of both signals was adjusted to TE polarized using two polarization controllers (PCs). To adjust the power of the pulsed pump, a broadband variable optical attenuator (VOA) was utilized. The output after propagation through the DUT was directed towards an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) for analysis.
Figure 4a shows the optical spectra after propagation through the uncoated Si3N4 waveguide and the hybrid waveguides with 1 and 2 layers of GO. For all three devices, the input pump peak power and signal power were kept the same at Ppeak = ~ 180 W and Psignal = ~ 6 mW, respectively. As the pump light used for the OPA experiments was pulsed, the optical parametric process occurred at a rate equivalent to the repetition rate of the FPL. As a result, both the generated idler and amplified signal also exhibited a pulsed nature with the same repetition rate as that of the FPL. The optical spectra in Fig. 4a were analyzed to extract the parametric gain PG experienced by the signal light for the three devices (see Methods). The PG for the uncoated Si3N4 waveguide and the hybrid waveguides with 1 and 2 layers of GO were ~ 11.8 dB, ~ 20.4 dB, and ~ 24.0 dB, respectively. The hybrid waveguides exhibited higher parametric gain compared to the uncoated waveguide, and the 2-layer device had higher parametric gain than the 1-layer device. These results confirm the improved OPA performance in the Si3N4 waveguide by integrating it with 2D GO films. We also note that the hybrid devices showed greater spectral broadening of the pulsed pump caused by self-phase modulation (SPM), which is consistent with our previous observations from SPM experiments57.
The values of PG in Fig. 4 are the net parametric gain, over and above the waveguide loss induced by both the GO-coated and uncoated Si3N4 waveguide segments (see Methods). This is different to the “on/off” parametric gain often quoted 11,43, where the waveguide loss is excluded, resulting in higher values of parametric gain. Here, the on-off gains for the waveguides with 0, 1, and 2 layers of GO were ~ 13. 2 dB, ~ 22.3 dB, and ~ 26.2 dB, respectively, which are only slightly higher than their corresponding net gains due to the low loss of the Si3N4 waveguides and the relatively short GO film length. Although the net gain can be increased closer to the on-off gain by reducing the waveguide loss via optimization of the fabrication processes, because the differences between the net and on-off gains are small in our case, there is not much incentive to do this. In the following, we focus our discussion on the net parametric gain PG. This can also ensure a fair comparison of the parametric gain improvement, as different waveguides have different waveguide loss.
Figure 4b shows the measured output optical spectra after propagation through the device with 2 layers of GO for different Ppeak. Figure 4c-i shows the signal parametric gain PG for the uncoated and hybrid waveguides versus input pump peak power, and the parametric gain improvement ∆PG for the hybrid waveguides as compared to the uncoated waveguide is further extracted and shown in Fig. 4c-ii. We varied the input pump peak power from ~ 30 W to ~ 180 W, which corresponds to the same power range used in Fig. 2d for loss measurements. The PG is higher for the hybrid waveguide with 1 layer of GO compared to the uncoated waveguide, and lower than the device with 2 layers of GO. In addition, both PG and ∆PG increase with Ppeak, and a maximum ∆PG of ~ 12.2 dB was achieved for the 2-layer device at Ppeak = ~ 180 W. Likewise, we observed similar phenomena when using lower-peak-power picosecond optical pulses for the pump, as shown in Figure S2 of the Supplementary Information.
To evaluate the OPA performance, we conducted experiments where we varied the wavelength detuning, CW signal power, and GO film length. Except for the varied parameters, all other parameters are the same as those in Fig. 4. In Fig. 5a, the measured signal parametric gain PG and parametric gain improvement ∆PG are plotted against the wavelength detuning Δλ, which is defined as the difference between the CW signal wavelength λsignal and the pump center wavelength λpump. It is observed that both the PG and ∆PG increase as Δλ changes from − 12 nm to -22 nm. In Fig. 5b, the PG and ∆PG are plotted against the CW signal power Psignal, showing a slight decrease as Psignal increases, which is primarily due to the fact that an increase in Psignal can result in a decrease in PG as per its definition (i.e., PG = Pout,signal / Pin,signal, see Methods). Figure 5c shows the PG and ∆PG versus GO film length. By measuring devices with various GO film lengths, ranging from ~ 0.2 mm to ~ 1.4 mm, we observed that those with longer GO films exhibited greater PG and ∆PG values. The PG achieved through the optical parametric process is influenced by several factors, such as the applied powers, optical nonlinearity, dispersion, and loss of the waveguides. These factors will be comprehensively analyzed in the following section.