Pulse carving using nanocavity-enhanced nonlinear effects in photonic crystal Fano structures

We experimentally demonstrate the use of a photonic crystal Fano resonance for carving-out short pulses from long-duration input pulses. This is achieved by exploiting an asymmetric Fano resonance combined with carrier-induced nonlinear effects in a photonic crystal membrane structure. The use of a nanocavity concentrates the input field to a very small volume leading to an efficient nonlinear resonance shift that carves a short pulse out of the input pulse. Here, we demonstrate shortening of ∼500  ps and ∼100  ps long pulses to ∼30  ps and ∼20  ps pulses, respectively. Furthermore, we demonstrate error-free low duty cycle return-to-zero signal generation at 2 Gbit/s with energy consumption down to ∼1  pJ/bit and power penalty of ∼2  dB. The device physics and limitations are analyzed using nonlinear coupled-mode theory.