Dynamic control over optical solitons in a resonant photonic crystal

Abstract

When a defect associated with a weak linear excitation or incoherent pump inside a resonant photonic crystal is created, dynamics of light propagation in a gap soliton regime undergo a considerable modification. We show that dynamic control of such a defect can be used to convert coherently a propagating optical pulse into a stationary excitation trapped inside the photonic crystal. This can also impose changes onto a pulse interaction with each other, thus facilitating possible applications in optical switching, signal processing, and quantum computing.