Demonstration of DC Kerr effect induced high nonlinear susceptibility in silicon rich amorphous silicon carbide

In this study, we demonstrate the DC Kerr effect in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition silicon rich amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Using the resonance shift of the transmission spectra of a ring resonator, we experimentally extract the third order nonlinear susceptibility χ 3 to be 6.90 × 10 − 19 m 2 / V 2, which is estimated to be more than six times higher than previous reported values in stoichiometric a-SiC. The corresponding induced second order nonlinear susceptibility χ 2 of 44.9 pm/V is also three times higher than the reported value in silicon and silicon rich nitride utilizing the DC Kerr effect. The high nonlinearity makes silicon rich a-SiC a good materials candidate for nonlinear photonic applications.