Inducing and harnessing stimulated Brillouin scattering in photonic integrated circuits

We review recent progress in inducing and harnessing stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in integrated photonic circuits. Exciting SBS in a chip-scale device is challenging due to the stringent requirements on materials and device geometry. We discuss these requirements, which include material parameters, such as optical refractive index and acoustic velocity, and device properties, such as acousto-optic confinement. Recent work on SBS in nano-photonic waveguides and micro-resonators is presented, with special attention paid to photonic integration of applications such as narrow-linewidth lasers, slowand fast-light, microwave signal processing, Brillouin dynamic gratings, and nonreciprocal devices. © 2013 Optical Society of America