Self-phase modulation in single CdTe nanowires

We measure the transmission of near-infrared ps pulses through single CdTe nanowires. Benefitting from the strong light confinement and large effective nonlinearity of these nanowires, a significant spectral broadening of similar to 5 nm and nonlinear phase shift of a few pi due to self-phase modulation (SPM) is observed experimentally at coupled peak power of a dozen W with a propagating length down to several hundred grns. A nonlinear-index coefficient (n(2)) as high as (9.5 +/- 1.4) x 10(-17) m(2)/W at 1550 nm is extracted from transmission spectra, corresponding to a nonlinear parameter (gamma) of similar to 1050 W-1 m(-1). The simulations indicate a spectral broadening more than 1.5 gm in single nanowire when pumped by fs pulses in anomalous dispersion regime. The obtained results suggest that, CdTe nanowire is promising in developing ultracompact nonlinear optical devices for microphotonic circuits. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement