Mechanism and properties of all-optical switching constructed from 1D symmetric defect ring optical waveguide network

Abstract

In this paper, barium fluoride (BaF2) and bismuth doped silicon-rich silicon dioxide (Bi-doped Si-rich SiO2) are used for designing a novel pump-free ultracompact ultrahigh efficiency all-optical switching constructed from a photonic band gap (PBG) structure, the one-dimensional (1D) symmetric defect ring optical waveguide network (SDROWN) with integer-broken waveguide length ratio. The ultralow threshold control energy of our designing all-optical switching is 1.24556 × 10−25J, which makes the switching be pump-free. The transverse and longitudinal feature sizes of the switching are, respectively, 160 nm and 270 nm, which arrive at the level of the best reported results and makes the switching may realize intense integration. The ultrahigh switching efficiency arrives at 8.69565 × 107 and is more than 2 orders of magnitude larger than those of other kinds of all-optical switchings. The switching time is nearly 116fs, which arrives at the level of the best reported results. On the other hand, this technique may provide the probability for solving the four contradictions/difficulties in the designing of practical on-chip all-optical switching. It may deepen people's knowledge on PBG structures and provide new scientific bases for the designing of practical on-chip all-optical switching.