title: Dependence of dispersive and birefringence properties of silicon nanowires on waveguide dimensions.
abstract: We study numerically the dependence of dispersive and birefringence properties of silicon nanowires on waveguide dimensions and show that they have a strong geometrical dependence when nanowire dimensions become comparable to the wavelength of light inside the device. We develop a graphical method for engineering two or more dispersion parameters simultaneously and use it to demonstrate the possibility of fabricating silicon nanowires with flattened dispersion curves over a wide spectral range with normal or anomalous nominal values. We quantify polarization-mode dispersion through the differential group delay and show that it can acquire large values for properly designed nanowires. Our analysis should help in designing silicon-based photonic integrated circuits.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA. daniel@optics.rochester.edu
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: Govind P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Agrawal