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Optics Letters

Optical bistability on a silicon chip

Vilson R. Almeida, Michal F. Lipson

Published Oct 15, 2004• 423 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, optical bistability on a highly integrated silicon device, using a 5-microm-radius ring resonator. The strong light-confinement nature of the resonator induces nonlinear optical response with low pump power. We show that the optical bistability allows all-optical functionalities, such as switching and memory with microsecond time response and a modulation depth of 10 dB, driven by pump power as low as 45 microW. Silicon optical bistability relies on a fast thermal nonlinear optical effect presenting a 500-kHz modulation bandwidth.

DOI
10.1364/ol.29.002387

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We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, optical bistability on a highly integrated silicon device, using a 5-microm-radius ring resonator. The strong light-confinement nature of the resonator induces nonlinear optical response with low pump power. We show that the optical bistability allows all-optical functionalities, such as switching and memory with microsecond time response and a modulation depth of 10 dB, driven by pump power as low as 45 microW. Silicon optical bistability relies on a fast thermal nonlinear optical effect presenting a 500-kHz modulation bandwidth.
We demonstrate low-power thermo-optic-based optical bistability in a free-standing silicon ring resonator. A bistable optical response is achieved at reduced pump powers by thermally isolating the ring resonator from its supporting substrate with an air gap. The conversion efficiency from optical power to temperature change in the silicon core is enhanced. The optical transfer function of the resulting free-standing resonator exhibits a hysteresis loop for 80 microW input optical power. Similar nonthermally isolated resonators at the same detuning do not exhibit a bistable mode for input powers less than 2 mW.
We demonstrate optical bistability in a Silicon-On-Insulator two-bus ring resonator with input powers as low as 0.3mW. We evaluate the importance of the different nonlinear contributions and derive time constants for carrier and thermal relaxation effects. In some cases, we also observe pulsation due to interaction between the dominant nonlinear effects. Such a behaviour may be problematic for possible memory and switching operations. Alternatively, it could be used for (tunable) pulse generation.
In this paper, for the first time to our knowledge, we investigate the optical bi-stability in a compact parallel array of micro- ring resonators with 5μm radius, induced by optical nonlinearity. Due to the nature of perfect light confinement, resonance and accumulation process in a ring resonator, optical nonlinear effects, even at small optical power of a few milliwatts in this structure are observable. Different optical applications such as: all-optical switching, memory, logic gates and modulators, due to optical bi-stability in a ring resonator are possible. By using of compound semiconductors, instead of silicon that have weakly nonlinear optical properties, we improve the performance of ring-resonator based devices. Also by using of a polymer cladding layer with negative thermo-optic coefficient, we have eliminate the temperature created nonlinearity which is a very slow process, so the switching speed of a few MHz increases to several tens of GHz. With plotting the transfer function of the resonator, a hysteresis loop in a few milliwatts is observed, that by using of ring resonator array, although the bandwidth is reduced, but the width of the hysteresis loop and resolution between both steady state
Ring resonators are critical in optical systems for their compact size and high selectivity. By leveraging optical bistability-arising from nonlinear effects like the Kerr effect-they enable advanced functionalities, whose performance is strictly correlated to ring resonator ones. Here, a silicon nitride ring resonator, with a groundbreaking Q-factor > 150 million and extinction ratio> 5 dB by gaining from low optical losses and Kerr effect, is presented, unlocking new potentials for data storage, sensing and signal processing technologies.