Inverse design of coherent supercontinuum generation using free-form nanophotonic waveguides

Abstract

Many key functionalities of optical frequency combs such as self-referencing and broad spectral access rely on coherent supercontinuum generation (SCG). While nanophotonic waveguides have emerged as a compact and power-efficient platform for SCG, their geometric degrees of freedom have not been fully utilized due to the underlying nonlinear and stochastic physics. Here, we introduce inverse design to unlock free-form waveguides for coherent SCG. The efficacy of our design is numerically and experimentally demonstrated on Si3N4 waveguides, producing flat and coherent spectra from visible to mid-infrared wavelengths. Our work has direct applications in developing chip-based broadband light sources for spectroscopy, metrology, and sensing across multiple spectral regimes.