Effects of higher-order dispersions on soliton-effect pulse compression in a silicon photonic nanowire

Effects of higher-order dispersions on soliton-effect pulse compression in a silicon photonic nanowire are numerically investigated in the infrared region of the spectrum. When propagation of femtosecond optical pulses in a nanowire is considered, higher-order dispersions become important and their effects in the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation (GNLSE) must be investigated. We show that, by adjusting the core diameter of the nanowire, we can selectively minimize the effects of higher-order dispersions and increase the compression factor. We include the effects of self-phase modulation (SPM), linear loss, two-photon absorption (TPA), and self-steepening in the GNLSE. We show that the TPA loss reduces the compression factor. However, the effect of TPA will be less when the nanowire is optimized for maximum compression by minimizing the effect of the fifth-order dispersion in the GNLSE.