Abstract

It has been shown that counterpropagating guided waves in a planar, nonlinear waveguide will generate second-harmonic light in a direction normal to the waveguide surface. We extend this idea by using it in a channel-waveguide configuration, where one end of the channel is polished and metallized to form a mirror. Based on this, we propose a high-data-rate serial-to-parallel converter whose input is a set of data pulses preceded by a timing pulse. Second-harmonic generation occurs only where two pulses overlap. We can therefore determine the proper detector positions from the data rate and the spacing between the timing pulse and the data pulses. Calculations for the second-harmonic generation power for several material systems will be presented, and applications for the device will be discussed.

© 1990 Optical Society of America