Patterning effects in ultrafast all-optical photonic crystal nanocavity switches

Abstract

All-optical switches are expected to play a key role in increasing the bandwidth of future communication networks by replacing slower electronic components for certain signal processing tasks. Previous work has demonstrated the possibility of switching a single pulse [1,2]. However, a more realistic investigation of the switching performance requires longer random pulse sequences, since detrimental effects may accumulate over time scales longer than one pulse duration. This has been investigated for switches based on semiconductor optical amplifiers [3], but in this work the focus is on a photonic crystal material system, which facilitates a high level of integration with other components such as waveguides, light sources, beam splitters, etc.