Tailorable Stimulated Brillouin Scattering In Silicon Nanophotonics

We examine the physics of traveling-wave photon-phonon coupling within nanoscale silicon waveguides and explore a host of new Brillouin-based signal processing technologies enabled by tailorable stimulated Brillouin processes in silicon photonics. Theoretical analysis of Brillouin coupling at sub-wavelength scales is presented, revealing that strong light-boundary interactions produce large radiation pressures mediated Brillouin nonlinearities. Experimental results demonstrating stimulated Brillouin scattering in silicon waveguides for the first time are also presented, revealing 1000 times larger forward stimulated Brillouin gain coeffcients than any prior system.