Abstract

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, optical bistability on a highly integrated silicon device, using a $5‐\mathit{\mu }\mathrm{m}$-radius ring resonator. The strong light-confinement nature of the resonator induces nonlinear optical response with low pump power. We show that the optical bistability allows all-optical functionalities, such as switching and memory with microsecond time response and a modulation depth of 10 dB, driven by pump power as low as $45 \mathit{\mu }\mathrm{W}$. Silicon optical bistability relies on a fast thermal nonlinear optical effect presenting a 500-kHz modulation bandwidth.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

All-optical switching on a silicon chip

Vilson R. Almeida, Carlos A. Barrios, Roberto R. Panepucci, Michal Lipson, Mark A. Foster, Dimitre G. Ouzounov, and Alexander L. Gaeta
Opt. Lett. 29(24) 2867-2869 (2004)

Fast bistable all-optical switch and memory on a silicon photonic crystal on-chip

Takasumi Tanabe, Masaya Notomi, Satoshi Mitsugi, Akihiko Shinya, and Eiichi Kuramochi
Opt. Lett. 30(19) 2575-2577 (2005)

Efficient single-photon counting at 1.55 µm by means of frequency upconversion

Marius A. Albota and Franco N. C. Wong
Opt. Lett. 29(13) 1449-1451 (2004)

Optical bistability in PECVD silicon-rich nitride

Alex Friedman, Dmitrii Belogolovskii, Andrew Grieco, and Yeshaiahu Fainman
Opt. Express 30(25) 45340-45349 (2022)

Analytical study of optical bistability in silicon-waveguide resonators

Ivan D. Rukhlenko, Malin Premaratne, and Govind P. Agrawal
Opt. Express 17(24) 22124-22137 (2009)