Carrier-induced optical bistability in silicon ring resonators.

Area of Science:

• Photonics and optical engineering
• Materials science and nanotechnology

Background:

• Optical bistability is crucial for all-optical signal processing and switching.
• Silicon photonics offers a scalable platform for integrated optical devices.
• The free-carrier dispersion (FCD) effect in silicon provides a nonlinear optical mechanism.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate and characterize optical bistability in a silicon ring resonator.
• To investigate the feasibility of low-power all-optical switching applications.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a micrometer-sized silicon ring resonator.
• Measurement of the resonator's transfer function under varying optical input power.
• Theoretical evaluation of the thermal optical effect's influence.

Main Results:

• Optical bistability was successfully demonstrated in the silicon ring resonator.
• A hysteresis loop was observed in the transfer function at input optical powers below 10 mW.
• The impact of the thermal optical effect was analyzed and minimized using nanosecond pulses.

Conclusions:

• Silicon ring resonators utilizing the FCD effect are suitable for achieving low-power optical bistability.
• This technology holds promise for developing components for all-optical routing and sequential logic operations.