All-optical diode action in asymmetric nonlinear photonic multilayers with perfect transmission resonances

Abstract

Light propagation in asymmetric Kerr-nonlinear multilayers with perfect transmission resonances is theoretically investigated. It is found that hybrid Fabry-Pérot/photonic-crystal structures of the type (BA) k (AB) k (AABB) m exhibit both pronounced unidirectionality (due to strong spatial asymmetry of the resonant mode) and high transmission (due to the existence of a perfect transmission resonance). This results in nonlinear optical diode action with low reflection losses without need for a pumping beam or input pulse modulation. By slightly perturbing the perfect transmission resonance condition, the operating regime of the optical diode can be tuned, with a trade-off between minimizing the reflection losses and maximizing the frequency bandwidth where unidirectional transmission exists. Optical diode action is demonstrated in direct numerical simulation, showing >92% transmittance in one direction and about 22% in the other. The effect of perfect transmission resonance restoration induced by nonlinearity was observed analytically and numerically. The proposed geometry is shown to have advantages over previously reported designs based on photonic quasicrystals.

Multiple omnidirectional defect modes and nonlinear magnetic-field effects in metamaterial photonic superlattices with a polaritonic defect

“…As well as, we consider the geometrical condition for the transversal magnetic (TM) omnidirectional zero-n gap, 17 showing that the corresponding defect modes remain also omnidirectional. Moreover, as it has been previously shown that nonlinear effects on defect modes deserve great attention because their potential applications for frequency multipliers, 27 optical-diodes and opticaltransistors, 28,29 we have considered the nonlinear magnetic metamaterial effects in order to dynamically tune these omnidirectional defect modes by means of the incident magnetic field intensity. Such nonlinear magnetic metamaterials can be fabricated by placing a varactor diode 30,31 or a photosensitive semiconductor 32 within the gap of the SRRs, which allows the SRRs to be tuned by an applied dc voltage or by a high-power signal, as was already shown in experiments.…”

Low-cross-talk and high-contrast all optical bistable switching based on coupled defects in a nonlinear photonic crystal cross-waveguide geometry

“…Among these approaches, it has been shown that the use of nonlinear bistability in PC microcavities allows the construction of ultra-compact all-optical switches that operate with high speed. The structures of those bistability-based switches can be one dimensional multilayer designs or other PC waveguide-based geometries [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Effect of a Subwavelength Layer on All Optical-Diode Action in 1d Photonic Crystal

“…Here letters A and B stands for nonlinear material with n A =1.55 and χ A =2.5×10 -5 cm 2 /MW (polydiacetylene 9-BCMU), and linear material with n B =2.3 (TiO 2 ), respectively [17]. Here, we have used 5 for the number of periodicity in the stack.…”