Quasi-soliton propagation in dispersion-engineered silicon nanowires

Soliton-like propagation of ultra-short pulses in dispersion-engineered silicon photonic wires is theoretically investigated via the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. It is shown that by proper patterning of silicon waveguides, the engineering of group velocity dispersion can effectively compensate for both linear and two-photon absorption-induced nonlinear losses. Quasi-soliton propagation is demonstrated for 100-fs pulses over large propagation lengths for a realistic silicon wire of optimally patterned waveguide width. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.