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Journal of Physics D Applied Physics

Slow light in photonic crystal waveguides

Thomas F. Krauss

Published Apr 19, 2007• 664 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The physical principles behind the phenomenon of slow light in photonic crystal waveguides, as well as their practical limitations, are discussed and put into context. This includes the nature of slow light propagation, its bandwidth limitation, the scaling of linear and nonlinear interactions with the slowdown factor as well as issues such as losses, coupling into and the tuning of slow modes. Applications in all-optical signal processing appear to be the most promising outcome of the phenomena discussed.

DOI
10.1088/0022-3727/40/9/s07

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The physical principles behind the phenomenon of slow light in photonic crystal waveguides, as well as their practical limitations, are discussed and put into context. This includes the nature of slow light propagation, its bandwidth limitation, the scaling of linear and nonlinear interactions with the slowdown factor as well as issues such as losses, coupling into and the tuning of slow modes. Applications in all-optical signal processing appear to be the most promising outcome of the phenomena discussed.
Slow light with a markedly low group velocity is a promising solution for optical buering and advanced time-domain optical signal processing.It is also anticipated to enhance linear and nonlinear eects and so miniaturize functional photonic devices because slow light compresses optical energy in space.Photonic crystal waveguide devices generate on-chip slow light at room temperature with a wide bandwidth and low dispersion suitable for short pulse transmission.This paper rst explains the delay-bandwidth product, fractional delay, and tunability as crucial criteria for buering capacity of slow light devices.Then the paper describes experimental observations of slow light pulse, exhibiting their record high values.It also demonstrates the nonlinear enhancement based on slow light pulse transmission.
Slow light with a markedly low group velocity is a promising solution for optical buffering and advanced time-domain optical signal processing. It is also anticipated to enhance linear and nonlinear effects and so miniaturize functional photonic devices because slow light compresses optical energy in space. Photonic crystal waveguide devices generate on-chip slow light at room temperature with a wide bandwidth and low dispersion suitable for short pulse transmission. This paper first explains the delay-bandwidth product, fractional delay, and tunability as crucial criteria for buffering capacity of slow light devices. Then the paper describes experimental observations of slow light pulse, exhibiting their record high values. It also demonstrates the nonlinear enhancement based on slow light pulse transmission.
Paradoxically, slow light promises to increase the speed of telecommunications in novel photonic structures, such as coupled resonators [1] and photonic crystals [2,3]. Apart from signal delays, the key consequence of slowing light down is the enhancement of light-matter interactions. Linear effects such as refractive index modulation scale linearly with slowdown in photonic crystals [3], and nonlinear effects are expected to scale with its square [4]. By directly observing the spatial compression of an optical pulse, by factor 25, we confirm the mechanism underlying this square scaling law. The key advantage of photonic structures over other slow light concepts is the potentially large bandwidth, which is crucial for telecommunications [5]. Nevertheless, the slow light previously observed in photonic crystals [2,3,6,7] has been very dispersive and featured narrow bandwidth. We demonstrate slow light with a bandwidth of 2.5 THz and a delay-bandwidth product of 30, which is an order of magnitude larger than any reported so far.
Light showing extremely slow propagation (known as "slow light") can produce various effects such as compression of optical signals, buffering, convolution integral calculation, beam forming, enhancement of optical absorption, gain, non-linearity, and so on. To generate such light, very large material and structural dispersions are used. Photonic crystal waveguides are good candidates for many device applications since they can easily generate slow light at room temperature. This paper discusses the potential of slow light devices while explaining some critical issues, such as the delay-band product and the dispersion compensation.
Slow light with a markedly low group velocity is a promising solution for optical buffering and advanced time-domain optical signal processing. It is also anticipated to enhance linear and nonlinear effects and so miniaturize functional photonic devices because slow light compresses optical energy in space. Photonic crystal waveguide devices generate on-chip slow light at room temperature with a wide bandwidth and low dispersion suitable for short pulse transmission. This paper first explains the delay-bandwidth product, fractional delay, and tunability as crucial criteria for buffering capacity of slow light devices. Then the paper describes experimental observations of slow light pulse, exhibiting their record high values. It also demonstrates the nonlinear enhancement based on slow light pulse transmission.