Coherent excitation of a nonlinear microcavity

J Oden,N Dubreuil,S Trebaol,P Delaye

doi:10.2971/jeos.2013.13046

Abstract

Coherent excitation of a nonlinear semiconductor microcavity is theoretically reported. It intends to counterbalance the frequency drift ofthe cavity resonance driven by the nonlinear refractive effects, which causes a limitation in the energy coupling efficiency of an input pulseinto the cavity resonance. We show that exciting such a nonlinear microcavity with tailored chirped pulses allows to maintain the benefit oflight localization and to further enhance light-matter interactions, opening the way to the realization of highly efficient nonlinear devices.

Highlights

Photonic crystal microcavities with high-quality factor and very small mode volume allow a strong enhancement of lightmatter and nonlinear interactions [1]
Whereas the nonlinear refractive index change induced by the pulse front edge detunes the cavity resonance, it contributes to a decrease of the coupling efficiency for the rest of the pulse
The nonlinear dynamics of an optical microcavity subject to a nonlinear refractive induced frequency shift has been discussed in this article

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Photonic crystal microcavities with high-quality factor and very small mode volume allow a strong enhancement of lightmatter and nonlinear interactions [1]. Among the various key components for photonic signal processing, realizations of alloptical switches based on nonlinear photonic crystal microcavities have been reported in Silicon [2], InP [3] (containing quantum wells), GaAs [4], InGaAs [5], and GaInP [6] In such a device, a control pulse induces a refractive index change of the nonlinear material, which in turns shifts the resonance frequency and modifies the transmission of the cavity. According to the analysis conducted in [17], and considering our pulse excitation condition (few ps pulse duration and low repetition time around 10 ns), we have neglected the thermal refractive index variation related to the fast dynamics of the free carriers. Using Eqs. (1)–(4), we study the temporal evolution of the intra-cavity field intensity

NONLINEAR MICROCAVITY DYNAMICS

COHERENT EXCITATION OF A NONLINEAR MICROCAVITY

CONCLUSION