Cavity enhanced nonlinear optics for few photon optical bistability

Abstract

Weak material nonlinearity at optical frequencies poses a serious hurdle to realizing optical bistability at low optical powers, which is a critical component for digital optical computing. In this paper, we explore the cavity enhancement of the second-order optical nonlinearity in order to determine the feasibility of few photon optical bistability. Starting from a quantum optical formalism of a doubly resonant cavity (required to meet the condition of phase matching), we derive a dynamic classical model of a cavity that is bistable at the fundamental mode. We analyze the optical energy and the switching speed as a function of the cavity quality factors and mode volumes and identify the regime where only ten's of photons are required to perform the switching. An unusual trend in the switching speed is also observed, where the speed monotonically decreases as the cavity linewidth increases. This is ascribed to the increase in the switching gain with increasing cavity linewidth.

Fundamental Scaling Laws in Nanophotonics

“…The inherent material nonlinearity does not depend on carrier generation or physical motion of carriers. Hence it can be ultrafast, and the resulting nonlinear device does not suffer from electronic shot noise4950. Unfortunately, this nonlinearity is generally rather weak, and requires LMI enhancement such as provided by a cavity.…”

“…However, such surface nonlinearities are generally much weaker, and will not be suitable for building energy-efficient switches. To elucidate the scaling behavior, we analyze performance of an optical bistable system5052. In such systems, the output power changes nonlinearly with the input power, with a sudden jump from one stable branch to another stable branch.…”

Image enhancement in a miniature self-imaging degenerate optical cavity

“…The results show the critical role that the non-paraxial nature of light plays for imageenhancing cavities even for seemingly macroscopic dimensions on the order of a millimeter. The trade-off among the intracavity image amplification, fidelity, and cavity size must be carefully considered when employing a self-imaging cavity for specific applications, such as nonlinear image processing with χ 2 , χ 3 , self-electrooptic, or two-dimensional materials [19][20][21][22] and designing robust arbitrary optical potentials for experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics [23,24].…”

Cavity nonlinear optics with layered materials

“…This wavelength range is particularly important for interfacing with telecommunication technologies. Using this process, we can realize optical bistability for a telecommunication wavelength laser [70]. In this wavelength range, the absorptive loss at the fundamental frequency is also minimal.…”