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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Slow light enhanced nonlinear photonic functionalities

Marcel Spurny, Bill Corcoran, Christelle Monat, Thomas F. Krauss

Published Jan 19, 2010• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss the enhancement of nonlinear functionalities in slow light photonic crystals. We show how slow light in photonic crystals is created, how nonlinear effects scale with the slowdown factor and what limits nonlinear effects in photonic crystals. We review some of the work recently reported in nonlinear optics in slow light photonic crystals and compare the observed effects to those found in other structures such as coupled resonators or photonic nanowires.

DOI
10.1117/12.840945

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We discuss the enhancement of nonlinear functionalities in slow light photonic crystals. We show how slow light in photonic crystals is created, how nonlinear effects scale with the slowdown factor and what limits nonlinear effects in photonic crystals. We review some of the work recently reported in nonlinear optics in slow light photonic crystals and compare the observed effects to those found in other structures such as coupled resonators or photonic nanowires.
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.
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.
There are two standard methods for controlling the group velocity of light. One makes use of the dispersive properties associated with the resonance structure of a material medium. The other makes use of structural resonances, such as those that occur in photonic crystals. Both procedures have proved useful in a variety of situations. In this work we contrast these two approaches, especially in terms of issues such as the kinematics of energy flow though the system and the resulting implications for the behavior of nonlinear optical processes in these situations. Stated differently, this paper addresses the question of when nonlinear optical processes are enhanced through use of slow-light interactions and when they are not.