Observation of femto-joule optical bistability involving Fano resonances in high-Q/Vm silicon photonic crystal nanocavities

Abstract

We observe experimentally optical bistability enhanced through Fano interferences in high-Q localized silicon photonic crystal resonances (Q ~ 30,000 and modal volume ~ 0.98 cubic wavelengths). This phenomenon is analyzed through nonlinear coupled-mode formalism, including the interplay of chi(3) effects such as two-photon absorption and related free-carrier dynamics, and optical Kerr as well as thermal effects and linear losses. Our experimental and theoretical results demonstrate for the first time Fano-resonance based bistable states with switching thresholds of 185 micro-Watt and 4.5 fJ internally stored cavity energy (~ 540 fJ consumed energy) in silicon for scalable optical buffering and logic.

arXiv comment15 pages, 4 figures, accepted by APL

References in corpus (2)

• Coupled-mode theory for stimulated Raman scattering in high-Q/Vm silicon photonic band gap defect cavity lasers
• Weak coupling interactions of colloidal lead sulphide nanocrystals with silicon photonic crystal nanocavities near 1.55 microns at room temperature

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