Design of Kerr-effect sensitive microcavity in nonlinear photonic crystal slabs for all-optical switching

Abstract

We design a Kerr-effect sensitive microcavity in hybrid semiconductor nonlinear photonic crystal (PhC) slabs for application in all-optical switching. Our new concept cavity is made from infiltrating the air hole array and coating the surface of usual semiconductor PhC slabs with polystyrene, and let the polystyrene instead of the semiconductor occupy the center of the cavity. Optimization of the cavity design by modulating the structure parameter yields a quality factor Q=1600 and shift magnitude δf≈8.4 nm while pumping the cavity with a light intensity of 80 GW/cm2. This cavity configuration can help to realize very fast response speed and low pump intensity in all-optical switching devices, reduce the demand for rigorous precision during the high-Q PhC cavity fabrication, and allow for easy integration with other integrated optical components.