Silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal miniature devices with slow light enhanced third-order nonlinearities

Abstract

Abstract. The effects of the slow-down factor on third-order nonlinear effects in silicon-oninsulator photonic crystal channel waveguides were investigated. In the slow light regime, with a group index equal to 99, these nonlinear effects are enhanced but the enhancement produced depends on the input peak power level. Simulations indicate the possibility of soliton-like propagation of 1 ps pulses at an input peak power level of 50 mW inside such a photonic crystal waveguide. The increase in the induced phase shift produced by lower group velocities can be used to decrease the size and power requirements needed to operate devices such as optical switches, logic gates, and wavelength translators.

Approximate expressions for estimation of four-wave mixing efficiency in slow-light photonic crystal waveguides

“…Unless otherwise specified, we use the value of τ C =600ps in our calculations. There is a third order power dependence of N C on the slow-down factor, as discussed in [5]. In Eqs.…”

“…2 is the free carrier density in the continuous wave regime [5,11]. We assume that the input pump signal has a period equal to T and is comprised of rectangular pulses and duration equal to T 1 .…”

“…where P s (0) is the incident signal power and P i (L) is the idler power at the output of the waveguide of total length L. Nanophotonic slow-light structures such as photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) [8] offer the possibility of achieving subwavelength light confinement, while at the same time enhancing nonlinear effects like FWM [5], [6]. Figure 1(a) shows the horizontal cross-section of a PCW formed in a triangular lattice of air holes embedded in a higher refractive index material.…”

“…Four wave mixing (FWM) is an important nonlinear phenomenon which may hold the key for many signal processing applications in future optical networks, including wavelength conversion, signal regeneration, phase inversion, optical switching and optical de-multiplexing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Degenerate FWM occurs when part of the optical power of a signal wave can be transferred to an idler wave located at another frequency through the mediation of a strong pump wave located at a third frequency.…”

New Design of All-Optical Slow Light TDM Structure Based on Photonic Crystals

“…Photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) application with slow light properties have been widely discussed [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] in the recent years. Slow light becomes possible to control the speed of light and can be applied to a great variety of applications, such as delay lines that control the arrival of optical signals and optical buffers.…”