title: Fast bistable all-optical switch and memory on a silicon photonic crystal on-chip.
abstract: We demonstrate extremely low-power all-optical bistability by utilizing silicon photonic crystal nanocavities, based on the plasma effect of carriers generated by two-photon absorption. Owing to the high quality factor and the small volume of the nanocavities, the photon density inside the cavity becomes extremely high, which leads to a large reduction in operation power. Optical bistable operation in a single nanocavity permits optical read-write memory operation, which opens the possibility of an integrated optical logic circuit on a single chip, based on photonic crystals. The demonstrated bistable threshold power is 0.4 mW with a set pulse energy of 74 fJ, at a switching speed of <100 ps.
authors.affiliation: NTT Basic Research Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1, Morinosato Wakamiya Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa 243-0198, Japan. takasumi@nttbrl.jp
authors.forename: Takasumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanabe
authors.forename: Masaya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Notomi
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mitsugi
authors.forename: Akihiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shinya
authors.forename: Eiichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuramochi