Ultralow-power and integrated operation of all-optical switches/memories in a photonic crystal chip

Author

Nozaki, Kengo ; Kuramochi, E. ; Shinya, Akihiko ; Matsuo, Shoichiro ; Sato, Takao ; Notomi, M.

Author_Institution

NTT Nanophotonics Center, NTT Corp., Atsugi, Japan

fYear

2014

fDate

6-10 July 2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

The on-chip integration of all-optical switches and random-access memories based on a photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity having a carrier-induced optical nonlinearity are presented. 25-channel all-optical gate switching and the wavelength-division multiplexing operation by silicon PhC nanocavity arrays were demonstrated with a femto-joule energy level. For the all-optical memory, an InP-based PhC nanocavity with an ultracompact buried heterostructure (BH) works well for strong confinement of photo-generated carriers, enabling an ultralow-power memory operation with nano-watt level. Integrated operation of all-optical memories was also demonstrated for the first time. Their ultralow power consumption, small footprint, and 40-Gb/s optical signal capability might be beneficial for future optical processing.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; indium compounds; integrated optics; nanophotonics; optical arrays; optical information processing; optical storage; optical switches; photonic crystals; random-access storage; silicon; wavelength division multiplexing; InP; PhC nanocavity; Si; all-optical gate switching; all-optical switches; carrier-induced optical nonlinearity; integrated operation; on-chip integration; optical processing; optical signal capability; photogenerated carriers; photonic crystal chip; random-access memories; ultracompact buried heterostructure; ultralow power consumption; ultralow-power memory operation; wavelength-division multiplexing operation; Cavity resonators; Integrated optics; Optical filters; Optical switches; Photonic crystals; Photonics; Ultrafast optics; all-optical memory; all-optical switch; photonic crystal; photonic integration;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2014 16th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Graz

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICTON.2014.6876413

Filename

6876413