Second-order nonlinear optics in silicon

The ubiquity and scalability of CMOS technologies are hard to ignore. To that end, nonlinear optics is a promising enhancement to this technology, enabling compact sources in the 1.2 to 4 μm wavelength range that are sufficiently affordable, compact, and low power. Efficient transduction of photons via nonlinear optics necessitates second-order material optical nonlinearities, which are identically zero in silicon. Second-order nonlinearities can, however, be induced in silicon via the application of a DC electric field, which has thus far been demonstrated at room temperature. We demonstrate additional proof-of-concept for this technology and provide future roadmaps for its scalability and applicability to quantum information processing.