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Ultra Low-Power All-Optical Switching

Marin Soljacic A, Elefterios Lidorikis, John D. Joannopoulos, Hau, L V

Published Jan 1, 2004• 63 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Using analytical modeling and detailed numerical simulations, we investigate properties of hybrid systems of Photonic Crystal micro-cavities which incorporate a highly non-linear Ultra Slow Light medium. We demonstrate that such systems, while being miniature in size (order wavelength), and integrable, could enable ultra-fast non-linear all-optical switching at single photon energy levels.

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Using analytical modeling and detailed numerical simulations, we investigate properties of hybrid systems of Photonic Crystal micro-cavities which incorporate a highly non-linear Ultra Slow Light medium. We demonstrate that such systems, while being miniature in size (order wavelength), and integrable, could enable ultra-fast non-linear all-optical switching at single photon energy levels.
Using detailed numerical simulations, and analytical theory, we study properties of micro-cavities which incorporate materials that exhibit Electro-magnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) or Ultra Slow Light (USL). We find that such systems, while being miniature in size (order wavelength), and integrable, can have some outstanding properties. In particular, they could have lifetimes orders of magnitude longer than other existing systems, and could exhibit non-linear all-optical switching at single photon power levels. Potential applications include miniature atomic clocks, and all-optical quantum information processing.
We theoretically analyze the optical nonlinearity present at very low optical power in a system consisting of a quantum dot strongly coupled to a cavity, and show that this system can be used for ultralow power and high-speed all-optical switching. We also present numerical simulation results showing both the detailed temporal behavior of such switch and the time-integrated energy transmission through the cavity. We use two different approaches-a quantum optical one and a semiclassical one-to describe the system's behavior, and observe reasonable agreement between the outcomes of numerical simulations based on these two approaches.
We demonstrate extremely low-power all-optical bistability by using photonic crystal linear resonators based on InGaAsP quantum-wells. Since the photonic crystal cavity has a high quality-factor and a small mode-volume, the photon density in the cavity is extremely high, which makes it possible to reduce the bistable power. The measured minimum bistable threshold power was 37 muW by using a fiber coupling technique, and the estimated nonlinear refractive index (n2) was -6.84times10-14m2/W at a wavelength of 1610.8 nm which is near the resonant wavelength of quantum-well. The low-power optical bistable operations in a single photonic crystal cavity open the possibility of integrated optical devices such as an all-optical memory and switch, based on photonic crystals
This article overviews our recent studies of ultrahigh-Q and ultrasmall photonic-crystal cavities, and their applications to nonlinear optical processing and novel adiabatic control of light. First, we show our latest achievements of ultrahigh-Q photonic-crystal nanocavities, and present extreme slow-light demonstration. Next, we show all-optical bistable switching and memory operations based on enhanced optical nonlinearity in these nanocavities with extremely low power, and discuss their applicability for realizing chip-scale all-optical logic, such as flip-flop. Finally, we introduce adiabatic tuning of high-Q nanocavities, which leads to novel wavelength conversion and another type of optical memories.