Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

International Journal of Modern Physics C

All-optical switch based on a new passive white light ring cavity

Na Li, ShuaiLing Wang, JianShan Wang, Xiuwen Xia, San-Huang Ke, Jingping Xu, Yaping Yang

Published Aug 23, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Achieving low power consumption and ultrafast response simultaneously remains a major challenge in all-optical switching technology. In this work, we propose and theoretically demonstrate a novel all-optical switch based on a passive white-light coupled ring resonator. Unlike conventional white-light cavity schemes that rely on negative-dispersion media and external pump fields, the proposed design exploits passive coupling and cavity-phase engineering to induce broadband resonance and effective phase compensation. This enables all-optical switching with significantly reduced threshold power and shortened response time, while maintaining structural simplicity and operational stability. Compared with classical white-light cavity switches, the passive design not only eliminates the demand to fill negative dispersion media but also offers enhanced robustness and feasibility for photonic integration. The proposed architecture provides a promising route toward high-performance all-optical computing and optical communication systems.

DOI
10.1142/s0129183127501440

Related papers

Nonlinear all-optical switch based on a white-light cavity

Na Li, Jingping Xu, Ge Song +5 more

It is well known that there is a bottleneck for nonlinear all-optical switching, namely, the switching power and the switching time cannot be lowered simultaneously. A lower switching power requires a resonator with a high quality ($Q$) factor, but leads to a longer switching time. We propose to overcome this bottleneck by replacing the nonlinear cavity in such an all-optical switch by a white-light cavity. This can be done by doping three-level atoms in the ring resonator and applying incoherent pump and coherent driving fields on it. The white-light cavity possesses broadband resonance in a linear region. Therefore, for the incident pulse, a broad range of frequency components can take part in the nonlinear process, and so it requires lower power to achieve switching compared to the conventional ring resonator. On the other hand, the refractive index of a white-light cavity has negative dispersion, leading to a fast group velocity. This results in a shorter time to build up the resonant response, yielding a short switching time.

Physical Review A•Apr 12, 2016•19 citations

Resonator-enhanced low power all-optical switch with a nonlinear ratio-variable coupler

Li Li, Junqing Li, Xinlu Zhang +1 more

One of the major challenges in realizing practical all-optical switching devices is the need for strong and fast material nonlinearity. The use of resonance-enhanced nonlinear effects in optical cavities has been explored as a promising way to lower the switching power. This paper provides numerically investigation of resonator-enhanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer all-optical switch by employing a nonlinear ratio-variable coupler with the merits of easy fabrication and excellent nonlinear optical controllability. This performs nonlinear optical switching with advantages of hundreds tW low switching threshold, steady switch ON/OFF states and a wide wavelength range by combining the high nonlinearity of ring and adjustable coupling ratio of RVC. Resonator finesse is controllable by incident power with potential applications in controllable photonic devices. Some undesirable effects involving attenuation, group delay and partial coherence lead to increase of switching power and low extinction ratio. Optical bistability and instability do not limit practical applications in optical switch. A desired tradeoff between response time and switching power can be achieved by controlling finesse. Picosecond ultrafast all-optical switch is predicted.

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Jan 30, 2007•0 citations

Ultrafast, Compact, and Energy Efficient All-Optical Switches Based on a Saturable Absorbing Cavity

Ping Ma, Heinz Jäckel, G.L. Bona +1 more

In this paper, we propose and theoretically investigate an ultrafast, compact, and energy efficient all-optical switch (AOS) design based on a saturable absorbing cavity. The conceptual basis of the switch design is the material absorption saturation phenomenon. The optical cavity is used to enhance the light-matter interaction locally. As a result, the device dimension is substantially reduced. Numerical studies were carried out analytically using the temporal-coupled mode theory. Cavity structural parameters and material properties related to the switch design are discussed. The figure of merit of the switch performance in terms of the insertion loss, extinction ratio, and operating energy consumption are analyzed. Finally, as a specific practical application of the developed AOS, ultrahigh-speed optical time division multiplexing operations are demonstrated.

IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics•Oct 31, 2014•10 citations

All-optical photon switching, router and amplifier using a passive-active optomechanical system

Lei Du, Yi-Mou Liu, Bo Jiang +1 more

We propose a feasible and flexible scheme to realize all-optical photon switching, router and amplifier by using a passive-active optomechanical system consisting of a passive cavity, an active cavity and a common movable membrane oscillator. Due to the cooperation between the gain effect of the active cavity and the interference effect between the probe fields, some novel phenomena arise, such as the frequency-independent perfect reflection first proposed in this paper, controllable photon routing, tunable fast and slow lights and so on. Based on the results, a photon switching of absorption-amplification and fast-slow-light transitions, and a photon router with controllable direction and intensity can be realized by adjusting relevant parameters such as the strengths of control fields and the relative phase between probe fields. Such a scheme may provide a promising platform for controllable photon transport and photonic device fabrication.

Europhysics Letters (EPL)•Jun 12, 2018•16 citations

Passive white light cavities with metal coatings

Jianshan Wang, Xiaohan Xie, Na Li +6 more

White light cavities with broadband resonance are usually filled with negative dispersion medium, which inevitably leads to gain. In this article, pure passive white light cavities are designed, in which negative dispersion medium is no longer necessary. Theoretically, if the reflection phase of the cavity wall can exhibit a negative dispersion slope, then it can also satisfy white light cavities conditions without medium. In practice, the negative dispersion property of the cavity wall can be realized by two metal coatings with different reflection coefficients. Therefore, our white light cavities are composite cavities, in which the main cavity provides resonance while the auxiliary cavity forms the cavity wall, providing negative dispersion reflection phase. Further, atomic gas can be employed to improve the performance of the white light cavities. Atomic gas exploits effects such as Electromagnetic Induced Transparency (EIT), enabling the white light cavities to be controlled by coherent driving field. With the passive characters, our design can be realized and implemented much more easily.

Optics Express•Aug 14, 2023•2 citations

Wide-band optical switch via white light cavity

Jingping Xu, M. Al-Amri, Yaping Yang +2 more

We propose a device whose reflectivity can be controlled optically over a wide frequency band. To this objective, we propose a Fabry-P\'erot cavity filled with a three-level atomic gas such that the effective susceptibility can be adjusted through incoherent pump and coherent driving fields. Adopting the concepts of electromagnetic-induced transparency and the white light cavity, we can control the susceptibility to break or satisfy the resonance condition over a wide frequency range, resulting in a wide-band optical switch. In addition to numerical calculation, we first give the analytical parameters, such as pump rate, and the Rabi frequency of the driven field, required for white light cavity in this paper. Using such a cavity as a wall of another cavity, we can, optically, realize a wide-band $Q$-switched cavity. Such a device can also be used as a new type of optical switch for quantum information.

Physical Review A•Sep 21, 2012•28 citations
Achieving low power consumption and ultrafast response simultaneously remains a major challenge in all-optical switching technology. In this work, we propose and theoretically demonstrate a novel all-optical switch based on a passive white-light coupled ring resonator. Unlike conventional white-light cavity schemes that rely on negative-dispersion media and external pump fields, the proposed design exploits passive coupling and cavity-phase engineering to induce broadband resonance and effective phase compensation. This enables all-optical switching with significantly reduced threshold power and shortened response time, while maintaining structural simplicity and operational stability. Compared with classical white-light cavity switches, the passive design not only eliminates the demand to fill negative dispersion media but also offers enhanced robustness and feasibility for photonic integration. The proposed architecture provides a promising route toward high-performance all-optical computing and optical communication systems.
It is well known that there is a bottleneck for nonlinear all-optical switching, namely, the switching power and the switching time cannot be lowered simultaneously. A lower switching power requires a resonator with a high quality (QQQ) factor, but leads to a longer switching time. We propose to overcome this bottleneck by replacing the nonlinear cavity in such an all-optical switch by a white-light cavity. This can be done by doping three-level atoms in the ring resonator and applying incoherent pump and coherent driving fields on it. The white-light cavity possesses broadband resonance in a linear region. Therefore, for the incident pulse, a broad range of frequency components can take part in the nonlinear process, and so it requires lower power to achieve switching compared to the conventional ring resonator. On the other hand, the refractive index of a white-light cavity has negative dispersion, leading to a fast group velocity. This results in a shorter time to build up the resonant response, yielding a short switching time.
One of the major challenges in realizing practical all-optical switching devices is the need for strong and fast material nonlinearity. The use of resonance-enhanced nonlinear effects in optical cavities has been explored as a promising way to lower the switching power. This paper provides numerically investigation of resonator-enhanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer all-optical switch by employing a nonlinear ratio-variable coupler with the merits of easy fabrication and excellent nonlinear optical controllability. This performs nonlinear optical switching with advantages of hundreds tW low switching threshold, steady switch ON/OFF states and a wide wavelength range by combining the high nonlinearity of ring and adjustable coupling ratio of RVC. Resonator finesse is controllable by incident power with potential applications in controllable photonic devices. Some undesirable effects involving attenuation, group delay and partial coherence lead to increase of switching power and low extinction ratio. Optical bistability and instability do not limit practical applications in optical switch. A desired tradeoff between response time and switching power can be achieved by controlling finesse. Picosecond ultrafast all-optical switch is predicted.
In this paper, we propose and theoretically investigate an ultrafast, compact, and energy efficient all-optical switch (AOS) design based on a saturable absorbing cavity. The conceptual basis of the switch design is the material absorption saturation phenomenon. The optical cavity is used to enhance the light-matter interaction locally. As a result, the device dimension is substantially reduced. Numerical studies were carried out analytically using the temporal-coupled mode theory. Cavity structural parameters and material properties related to the switch design are discussed. The figure of merit of the switch performance in terms of the insertion loss, extinction ratio, and operating energy consumption are analyzed. Finally, as a specific practical application of the developed AOS, ultrahigh-speed optical time division multiplexing operations are demonstrated.
We propose a feasible and flexible scheme to realize all-optical photon switching, router and amplifier by using a passive-active optomechanical system consisting of a passive cavity, an active cavity and a common movable membrane oscillator. Due to the cooperation between the gain effect of the active cavity and the interference effect between the probe fields, some novel phenomena arise, such as the frequency-independent perfect reflection first proposed in this paper, controllable photon routing, tunable fast and slow lights and so on. Based on the results, a photon switching of absorption-amplification and fast-slow-light transitions, and a photon router with controllable direction and intensity can be realized by adjusting relevant parameters such as the strengths of control fields and the relative phase between probe fields. Such a scheme may provide a promising platform for controllable photon transport and photonic device fabrication.
White light cavities with broadband resonance are usually filled with negative dispersion medium, which inevitably leads to gain. In this article, pure passive white light cavities are designed, in which negative dispersion medium is no longer necessary. Theoretically, if the reflection phase of the cavity wall can exhibit a negative dispersion slope, then it can also satisfy white light cavities conditions without medium. In practice, the negative dispersion property of the cavity wall can be realized by two metal coatings with different reflection coefficients. Therefore, our white light cavities are composite cavities, in which the main cavity provides resonance while the auxiliary cavity forms the cavity wall, providing negative dispersion reflection phase. Further, atomic gas can be employed to improve the performance of the white light cavities. Atomic gas exploits effects such as Electromagnetic Induced Transparency (EIT), enabling the white light cavities to be controlled by coherent driving field. With the passive characters, our design can be realized and implemented much more easily.
We propose a device whose reflectivity can be controlled optically over a wide frequency band. To this objective, we propose a Fabry-P\'erot cavity filled with a three-level atomic gas such that the effective susceptibility can be adjusted through incoherent pump and coherent driving fields. Adopting the concepts of electromagnetic-induced transparency and the white light cavity, we can control the susceptibility to break or satisfy the resonance condition over a wide frequency range, resulting in a wide-band optical switch. In addition to numerical calculation, we first give the analytical parameters, such as pump rate, and the Rabi frequency of the driven field, required for white light cavity in this paper. Using such a cavity as a wall of another cavity, we can, optically, realize a wide-band QQQ-switched cavity. Such a device can also be used as a new type of optical switch for quantum information.