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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

Optical Bistable Response in AlGaAs-Based Photonic Crystal Microcavities and Related Nonlinearities

Hitoshi Kawashima, Yu Tanaka, Naoki Ikeda, Yoshimasa Sugimoto, Toshifumi Hasama, Hiroshi Ishikawa

Published Jul 24, 2008• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical bistable responses in AlGaAs-based photonic crystal cavities with Al fractions of 0.16 and 0.27 under a stationary condition are studied. An analysis of the experimental results with a one-dimensional etalon model indicates that the bistable response is primarily driven by optical nonlinearities that stem from a heat generation in two-photon absorption and in free-carrier absorption. A free-carrier plasma effect is not influential, which is a major difference from the case of Si photonic crystal cavities. The accumulation of heat enables the phase or index to significantly change. An estimate indicates that a high$Q$-factor is advantageous for driving bistability exclusively by the Kerr effect.

DOI
10.1109/jqe.2008.924818

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We report on bistable operations in a microcavity formed on an AlGaAs-based photonic crystal slab at telecommunication wavelengths. We designed the cavity to achieve a high quality (QQQ)-factor, while maintaining a small mode volume; this was accomplished by removal of a single air hole. The fabricated microcavity exhibited a resonant peak with aQQQ-factor of 1900 at 1548 nm. In nonlinear transmission measurement, when the input power was increased, a bistable characteristic which was dependent on the detuned wavelength from the resonance was observed. The bistability was considered to originate from thermal nonlinearity due to two-photon absorption.
Focus Serial: Frontiers of Nonlinear Optics Nonlinear photonic-crystal microresonators offer unique fundamental ways of enhancing a variety of nonlinear optical processes. This enhancement improves the performance of nonlinear optical devices to such an extent that their corresponding operation powers and switching times are suitable for their implementation in realistic ultrafast integrated optical devices. Here, we review three different nonlinear optical phenomena that can be strongly enhanced in photonic crystal microcavities. First, we discuss a system in which this enhancement has been successfully demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, namely, a photonic crystal cavity showing optical bistability properties. In this part, we also present the physical basis for this dramatic improvement with respect to the case of traditional nonlinear devices based on nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalons. Secondly, we show how nonlinear photonic crystal cavities can be also used to obtain complete second-harmonic frequency conversion at very low input powers. Finally, we demonstrate that the nonlinear susceptibility of materials can be strongly modified via the so-called Purcell effect, present in the resonant cavities under study.
We investigate the property of optical bistability in a photonic-crystal one-atom laser when nonlinear microcavity is present. The physical system consists of a coherently driven two-level light emitter strongly coupled to a high-quality microcavity which is embedded within a photonic crystal and another coherent probing field which has incident into the microcavity. In our case, the microcavity is fabricated by nonlinear material and placed as an impurity in photonic crystal. This study reveals that such a system can exhibit optical bistability. The dependence of threshold value and hysteresis loop on the photonic band gap of the photonic crystal, driving field Rabi frequency and dephasing processes, are studied. Our results clearly illustrate the ability to control optical bistability through suitable photonic-crystal architectures and external coherent driving field, and this study suggests that in a photonic-crystal nonlinear microcavity, the one-atom laser acts as an effective controllable bistable device in the design of all-light digital computing systems in the near future.
The authors observe experimentally optical bistability enhanced through Fano interferences in high-Q localized silicon photonic crystal resonances (Q∼30000 and modal volume ∼0.98 cubic wavelengths). This phenomenon is analyzed through nonlinear coupled-mode formalism, including the interplay of χ(3) effects such as two-photon absorption and related free-carrier dynamics, and optical Kerr as well as thermal effects and linear losses. Experimental and theoretical results demonstrate Fano resonance based bistable states with switching thresholds of 185μW and 4.5fJ internally stored cavity energy (∼540fJ consumed energy) in silicon for scalable optical buffering and logic.