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

All-optical switches and bistable devices using high- Q photonic crystal nanocavities

Takasumi Tanabe, Akihiko Shinya, Eiichi Kuramochi, Hideaki Taniyama, Masaya Notomi

Published Feb 2, 2009• 0 citations

Abstract

We review our recent progress on all-optical switching and bistability using ultrahigh-Q photonic crystal nanocavities. We also discuss all-optical logic gate operations. Because photonic crystal nanocavities can strongly confine photons in a small area for a long time, light can efficiently interact with dipoles. As a result, optical nonlinearities occur at a very low input. Optical nonlinearities are essential as regards all-optical switching and bistability, because they dynamically change such material properties as refractive index. We demonstrate all-optical switching at an operating energy of less than 100 fJ, and bistable operation at less than ~100 μW. In addition, these devices are small and so can operate at a reasonably high speed (~100 ps).

DOI: 10.1117/12.811081

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