Hideaki Taniyama

Ultrahigh-Q Nanocavity with 1D Photonic Gap

Recently, various wavelength-sized cavities with theoretical Q values of approximately 10(8) have been reported, however, they all employ 2D or 3D photonic band gaps to realize strong light confinement. Here we numerically demonstrate that ultrahigh-Q (2.0x10(8)) and wavelength-sized (V(eff) approximately 1.4(lambda/n)3) cavities can be achieved by employing only 1D periodicity.

Photonic crystal lasers using wavelength-scale embedded active region

Lasers with ultra-low operating energy are desired for use in chip-to-chip and on-chip optical interconnects. If we are to reduce the operating energy, we must reduce the active volume. Therefore, a photonic crystal (PhC) laser with a wavelength-scale cavity has attracted a lot of attention because a PhC provides a large Q-factor with a small volume. To improve this devices performance, we employ an embedded active region structure in which the wavelength-scale active region is buried with an InP PhC slab. This structure enables us to achieve effective confinement of both carriers and photons, and to improve the thermal resistance of the device. Thus, we have obtained a large external differential quantum efficiency of 55% and an output power of ?10?dBm by optical pumping. For electrical pumping, we use a lateral p?i?n structure that employs Zn diffusion and Si ion implantation for p-type and n-type doping, respectively. We have achieved room-temperature continuous-wave operation with a threshold current of 7.8??A and a maximum 3?dB bandwidth of 16.2?GHz. The results of an experimental bit error rate measurement with a 10?Gbit?s?1 NRZ signal reveal the minimum operating energy for transferring a single bit of 5.5?fJ. These results show the potential of this laser to be used for very short reach interconnects. We also describe the optimal design of cavity quality (Q) factor in terms of achieving a large output power with a low operating energy using a calculation based on rate equations. When we assume an internal absorption loss of 20?cm?1, the optimized coupling Q-factor is 2000.

Nonlinear and adiabatic control of high-Q photonic crystal nanocavities

This article overviews our recent studies of ultrahigh-Q and ultrasmall photonic-crystal cavities, and their applications to nonlinear optical processing and novel adiabatic control of light. First, we show our latest achievements of ultrahigh-Q photonic-crystal nanocavities, and present extreme slow-light demonstration. Next, we show all-optical bistable switching and memory operations based on enhanced optical nonlinearity in these nanocavities with extremely low power, and discuss their applicability for realizing chip-scale all-optical logic, such as flip-flop. Finally, we introduce adiabatic tuning of high-Q nanocavities, which leads to novel wavelength conversion and another type of optical memories.

Ultrahigh-Q one-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavities with modulated mode-gap barriers on SiO2 claddings and on air claddings.

We report designs for a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity with modulated mode-gap barriers based on the lowest dielectric band. These cavities have an ultrahigh theoretical quality factor (Q) of 10(7)-10(8) while maintaining a very small modal volume of 0.6-2.0 (lambda/n)(3), which are the highest Q for any nanocavities with SiO(2) under-cladding. We have fabricated these SOI 1D-PhC cavities and confirmed that they exhibited a Q of 3.6 x 10(5), which is also the highest measured Q for SOI-type PhC nanocavities. We have also applied the same design to 1D PhC cavities with air claddings, and found that they exhibit a theoretical quality factor higher than 10(9). The fabricated air-cladding 1D Si PhC cavities have showed a quality factor of 7.2 x 10(5), which is close to the highest Q value for 1D PhC cavities.

Room-temperature continuous-wave operation of lateral current injection wavelength-scale embedded active-region photonic-crystal laser

We have developed a wavelength-scale embedded active-region photonic-crystal laser using lateral p-i-n structure. Zn diffusion and Si ion implantation are used for p- and n-type doping. Room-temperature continuous-wave lasing behavior is clearly observed from the injection current dependence of the output power, 3dB-bandwidth of the peak, and lasing wavelength. The threshold current is 390 μA and the estimated effective threshold current is 9.4 μA. The output power in output waveguide is 1.82 μW for a 2.0-mA current injection. These results indicate that the embedded active-region structure effectively reduce the thermal resistance. Ultrasmall electrically driven lasers are an important step towards on-chip photonic network applications.

Dynamic release of trapped light from an ultrahigh-Q nanocavity via adiabatic frequency tuning.

Adiabatic frequency shifting is demonstrated by tuning an ultrahigh-Q photonic crystal nanocavity dynamically. By resolving the output temporally and spectrally, we showed that the frequency of the light in the cavity follows the cavity resonance shift and remains in a single mode throughout the process. This confirmed unambiguously that the frequency shift results from the adiabatic tuning. We have employed this process to achieve the dynamic release of a trapped light from an ultrahigh-Q cavity and thus generate a short pulse. This approach provides a simple way of tuning Q dynamically.

Design of a high-Q air-slot cavity based on a width-modulated line-defect in a photonic crystal slab

We have presented a novel design of a photonic crystal slab (PCS) nanocavity, in which the electric field of the cavity mode is strongly localized in free space. The feature of the cavity is a linear air slot introduced to the center of the mode-gap confined PCS cavity. Owing to the discontinuity of the dielectric constant, the electric field of the cavity mode is strongly enhanced inside the slot, allowing strong matter-field coupling and large interaction volume in free space. Using finite-difference time-domain method, we calculate the properties of the cavity mode as a function of the slot width. The calculated quality factor is still as high as 2 x 10(5) and the mode volume is as small as 0.14 of a cubic wavelength in a vacuum, even if 200-nm-wide slot is introduced to the PCS.

All-silicon sub-Gb/s telecom detector with low dark current and high quantum efficiency on chip

We demonstrate channel selective 0.1-Gb/s photoreceiver operation at telecom wavelength using a silicon high-Q photonic crystal nanocavity with a laterally integrated p-i-n diode. Due to the good crystal property of silicon the measured dark current is only 15 pA. The linear and nonlinear characteristics are investigated in detail, in which we found that the photocurrent is enhanced of more than 105 due to the ultrahigh-Q (Q≃105). With the help of two-photon absorption, which is visible at a surprisingly low input power of 10−8 W, the quantum efficiency of this device reaches ∼10%.

Fast Purcell-enhanced single photon source in 1,550-nm telecom band from a resonant quantum dot-cavity coupling

High-bit-rate nanocavity-based single photon sources in the 1,550-nm telecom band are challenges facing the development of fibre-based long-haul quantum communication networks. Here we report a very fast single photon source in the 1,550-nm telecom band, which is achieved by a large Purcell enhancement that results from the coupling of a single InAs quantum dot and an InP photonic crystal nanocavity. At a resonance, the spontaneous emission rate was enhanced by a factor of 5 resulting a record fast emission lifetime of 0.2 ns at 1,550 nm. We also demonstrate that this emission exhibits an enhanced anti-bunching dip. This is the first realization of nanocavity-enhanced single photon emitters in the 1,550-nm telecom band. This coupled quantum dot cavity system in the telecom band thus provides a bright high-bit-rate non-classical single photon source that offers appealing novel opportunities for the development of a long-haul quantum telecommunication system via optical fibres.

20-Gbit/s directly modulated photonic crystal nanocavity laser with ultra-low power consumption

We have demonstrated an ultracompact buried heterostructure photonic crystal (PhC) laser, consisting of an InGaAsP-based active region (5.0 x 0.3 x 0.15 μm3) buried in an InP layer. By employing a buried heterostructure with an InP layer, we can greatly improve thermal resistance and carrier confinement. We therefore achieved a low threshold input power of 6.8 μW and a maximum output power in the output waveguide of -10.3 dBm by optical pumping. The output light is effectively coupled to the output waveguide with a high external differential quantum efficiency of 53%. We observed a clear eye opening for a 20-Gbit/s NRZ signal modulation with an absorbed input power of 175.2 μW, resulting in an energy cost of 8.76 fJ/bit. This is the smallest reported energy cost for any type of semiconductor laser.