Ultrafast all-optical switching in one-dimensional semiconductor–polymer hybrid nonlinear photonic crystals with relaxing Kerr nonlinearity

Abstract

The achievement of ultrafast all-optical switching on chip is a fundamental issue of all-optical integration. A feasible and promising method for this is to combine semiconductor photonic crystals with highly nonlinear polymer materials to form the hybrid nonlinear photonic crystal. In this paper we numerically investigate the femtosecond dynamic response of all-optical switching based on the effect of band gap edge shift in one-dimensional (1D) semiconductor–polymer hybrid nonlinear photonic crystal (NPC) structures. Taking into account the Kerr relaxation time of the polymer and semiconductor materials simultaneously, the introduction of highly nonlinear polymer materials with femtosecond relaxation time can realize all-optical switching in the femtosecond range in spite of the low response speed of the semiconductor materials. The physical origin is the large and ultrafast response Kerr nonlinearity of the polymer materials and this is proved by examining the dependence of switching time on the relaxation speed of the polymer materials. The results can be extended to 2D and 3D NPC structures.