Energy-Efficient Ultrashort-Pulse Characterization using Nanophotonic Parametric Amplification

Abstract: The growth of ultrafast nanophotonic circuits necessitates the development of energy-efficient on-chip pulse characterization techniques. Nanophotonic realizations of Frequency Resolved Optical Gating, a common pulse characterization technique in bulk optics, have been challenging due to their non-collinear nature and the lack of efficient nonlinear optical processes in the integrated platform. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a novel FROG-based technique compatible with the nanophotonic platform that leverages the high gain-bandwidth of a dispersion-engineered degenerate optical parametric amplifier for energy-efficient ultrashort pulse characterization. We demonstrate on-chip pulse characterization of sub-80-fs, ~1-fJ pulses using just ~60-fJ of gate pulse energy, which is several orders of magnitude lower than the gate pulse energy required for characterizing similar pulses in the bulk counterpart. In the future, we anticipate our work will enable the characterization of ultraweak-ultrashort pulses with energies at the single photon level.