Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Nonlinear optical properties and ultrafast carrier dynamics of slab-coupled optical waveguide amplifiers, silicon nanowaveguides, and III-V semiconductor saturable Bragg reflectors are studied. The limits imposed by two photon absorption and free-carrier absorption on the gain and output powers of an InGaAsP/InP slab-coupled optical waveguide amplifier with a confinement factor of [gamma] = 0.5% are determined. The two-photon absorption coefficient and the induced freecarrier absorption cross-section were measured to be 65cm/GW and 7x10-4 cm2, respectively. The effects of two-photon absorption begin to limit the gain significantly for pulses shorter than 40ps. The carrier recovery times were observed to vary between 390 to 160ps for 1A to 4A bias currents, and the short-pulse saturation fluence of the gain was determined to be 1.4mJ/cm2. Furthermore, nonlinear optical processes in high-index-contrast waveguide circuits consisting of 106nm x 497nm silicon waveguides with Si0 2 and HSQ cladding layers were studied using a heterodyne pump probe experimental setup. The linear loss of the waveguides was determined to be 6.5dB/cm. The two-photon absorption coefficient and free-carrier absorption effective crosssection were determined to be 0.68cm/GW, and 1.9x10-17 cm 2, respectively. Coefficients for the index changes due to optical Kerr effect, and free-carrier density were determined to be 3.2x10- 4 cm 2/W, and -5.5x10-21 cm3. Effects of the proton bombardment on linear loss and carrier lifetimes in the devices were also studied. Carrier lifetime reduction to 33ps with a linear loss of only 14.8dB/cm was achieved using a proton bombardment level of 105 /cm 2. Ultrafast dynamics of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors were also investigated. The addition of resonant layers to the absorbers resulted in lower saturation fluence and increased non-saturable loss. Proton bombardment was utilized on these devices as well, to decrease the carrier recovery times. With proton bombardment of single-absorber layer devices with 40KeV proton energies at a dose of 1015/cm2, a 1.5ps carrier recovery time was achieved in single-absorber structures.by Ali Reza Motamedi.Ph.D
