Nonreciprocal photonic crystal add-drop filter

Abstract

We present a versatile add-drop integrated photonic filter (ADF) consisting of nonreciprocal waveguides in which the propagation of light is restricted in one predetermined direction. With the bus and add/drop waveguides symmetrically coupled through a cavity, the four-port device allows each individual port to add and/or drop a signal of the same frequency. The scheme is general and we demonstrate the nonreciprocal ADF with magneto-optical photonic crystals. The filter is immune to waveguide defects, allowing straightforward implementation of multi-channel ADFs by cascading the four-port designs. The results should find applications in wavelength-division multiplexing and related integrated photonic techniques.