Nonlinear heating and scattering in a single crystalline silicon nanostructure

Silicon nanophotonics has attracted significant attention because of its unique optical properties such as efficient light confinement and low non-radiative loss. For practical applications such as all-optical switch, optical nonlinearity is a prerequisite, but the nonlinearity of silicon is intrinsically weak. Recently, we discovered a giant nonlinearity of scattering from a single silicon nanostructure by combining Mie resonance enhanced photo-thermal and thermo-optic effects. Since scattering and absorption are closely linked in Mie theory, we expect that absorption, as well as heating, of the silicon nanostructure shall exhibit similar nonlinear behaviors. In this work, we experimentally measure the temperature rise of a silicon nanoblock by in situ Raman spectroscopy, explicitly demonstrating the connection between nonlinear scattering and nonlinear heating. The results agree well with finite-element simulation based on the photo-thermo-optic effect, manifesting that the nonlinear effect is the coupled consequence of the red shift between scattering and absorption spectra. Our work not only unravels the nonlinear absorption in a silicon Mie-resonator but also offers a quantitative analytic model to better understand the complete photo-thermo-optic properties of silicon nanostructures, providing a new perspective toward practical silicon photonics applications.