High sensitivity electro-optic modulation of slow light in ellipse rods PC-CROW

Abstract

A tunable slow light with low group velocity, high buffer performance and high sensitivity is realized in photonic crystal coupled resonator optical waveguide (PC-CROW) with elliptical rod around cavity. By adjusting the long axis and short axis of the elliptical rods, the slow light and buffer performance of PC-CROW are optimized. As ae=0.42a, be=0.20a, the group velocity is below 2.3053×10−4c, simultaneously, the buffer capacity C and delay time Ts reach the optimum value of 9.8214bit and 354.8ps. Then the dynamic modulation of the slow light and buffer performance based on this optimized structure has been discussed systematically. Thanks to the electro-optic effect of the polystyrene substrate, the guided mode shifts linearly to short wavelength in sensitivity of 3.0nm/mV around 1550nm, as the applied voltage increases. The modulation sensitivities of delay time and buffer capacity are 0.445ns/mV and 0.051bit/mV, respectively. These results show a considerable potential for this structure that can be dynamically controlled according to the practical requirements by electro-optic effect in PC-CROW.