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.

15 pages, 4 figures, accepted by APL

References in corpus (1)

• Coupled-mode theory for stimulated Raman scattering in high-Q/Vm silicon photonic band gap defect cavity lasers

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Fano resonance control in a photonic crystal structure and its application to ultrafast switching
• Digital resonance tuning of high-Q/Vm silicon photonic crystal nanocavities by atomic layer deposition
• Radio frequency regenerative oscillations in monolithic high-Q/V heterostructured photonic crystal cavities
• Molecular-absorption-induced thermal bistablity in PECVD silicon nitride microring resonators
• Observations of interior whispering gallery modes in asymmetric optical resonators with rational caustics