Masaya Notomi

Self-collimating phenomena in photonic crystals

We found that self-determining collimated light is generated in a photonic crystal fabricated on silicon. The divergence of the collimated beam is insensitive to that of the incident beam and much smaller than the divergence that would be generated in conventional Gaussian optics. The incident-angle dependence of the self-collimated light propagation including lens-like divergent propagation was interpreted in terms of the highly modulated dispersion surfaces with inflection points, where the curvature changes from downward to upward corresponding to respectively a concave/convex-lens case. This demonstration is an important step towards controlling beam profile in photonic crystal integrated light circuits and towards developing “photonic crystalline optics.”

Ultrahigh- Q photonic crystal nanocavities realized by the local width modulation of a line defect

We propose an ultrahigh quality factor (Q) photonic crystal slab nanocavity created by the local width modulation of a line defect. We show numerically that this nanocavity has an intrinsic Q value of up to 7×107. Transmission measurements for fabricated Si photonic-crystal-slab nanocavities directly coupled to input/output waveguides have exhibited a loaded Q value of ∼800000. These theoretical and experimental Q values are very high for photonic crystal nanocavities. In addition, we demonstrate that simply shifting two holes away from a line defect is sufficient to achieve an ultrahigh Q value both theoretically and experimentally.

Waveguides, resonators and their coupled elements in photonic crystal slabs.

The design, fabrication, and measurement of photonic-band-gap (PBG) waveguides, resonators and their coupled elements in two-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) slabs have been investigated. We have studied various loss mechanisms in PBG waveguides and have achieved a very low propagation loss (~1 dB/mm). For these waveguides, we have observed a large group delay (>100 ps) by time-domain measurement. As regards PBG resonators, we realize very high-Q and small volume resonators in PhC slabs by appropriate design. Finally, we demonstrate various forms of coupled elements of waveguides and resonators: 2-port resonant-tunneling transmission devices, 4-port channel-drop devices using the slow light mode, and 3-port channel-drop devices using the resonant-tunneling process.

Optical bistable switching action of Si high-Q photonic-crystal nanocavities.

We have demonstrated all-optical bistable switching operation of resonant-tunnelling devices with ultra-small high-Q Si photonic-crystal nanocavities. Due to their high Q/V ratio, the switching energy is extremely small in comparison with that of conventional devices using the same optical nonlinear mechanism. We also show that they exhibit all-opticaltransistor action by using two resonant modes. These ultrasmall unique nonlinear bistable devices have potentials to function as various signal processing functions in photonic-crystal-based optical-circuits.

All-optical switches on a silicon chip realized using photonic crystal nanocavities

We demonstrate all-optical switching in the telecommunication band, in silicon photonic crystals at high speed (∼50ps), with extremely low switching energy (a few 100fJ), and high switching contrast (∼10dB). The devices consist of ultrasmall high-quality factor nanocavities connected to input and output waveguides. Switching is induced by a nonlinear refractive-index change caused by the plasma effect of carriers generated by two-photon absorption in silicon. The high-quality factor and small mode volume led to an extraordinarily large reduction in switching energy. The estimated internal switching energy in the nanocavity is as small as a few tens of fJ, indicating that further reduction on the operating energy is possible.

Photonic crystals for micro lightwave circuits using wavelength-dependent angular beam steering

Light-beam steering that is extremely wavelength dependent has been demonstrated by using photonic crystals fabricated on Si. The scanning span reached 50° with only a 1% shift of incident wavelength at around 1 μm. The resulting angular dispersion is two orders of magnitude larger than that achieved with conventional prisms or gratings. The application of such superprism phenomena promises to enable the fabrication of integrated micro lightwave circuits that will allow more efficient use of wavelength resources when used in wavelength multiplexers/demultiplexers or dispersion compensators by enabling lower loss and broader bandwidth.

Superprism phenomena in photonic crystals: toward microscale lightwave circuits

The superprism phenomenon, the dispersion of light 500 times stronger than the dispersion in conventional prisms, was demonstrated at optical wavelengths in photonic crystals (PCs) fabricated on Si. Drastic light-beam steering in the PCs was achieved by slightly changing the incident wavelength or angle. The scanning span reached 50/spl deg/ with only a 1% shift of incident wavelength, and reached 140/spl deg/ with only a 14/spl deg/ shift of the incident angle at wavelengths around 1 /spl mu/m. The propagation direction was quantitatively interpreted in terms of highly anisotropic dispersion surfaces derived by photonic band calculation. The physics behind this demonstration will open a novel field called photonic crystalline optics. The application of these phenomena promises to enable the fabrication of integrated microscale lightwave circuits (/spl mu/LCs) on Si with large scale integrated (LSI)-compatible lithography techniques. Such /spl mu/LCs will allow more efficient use of wavelength resources when used in wavelength multiplexers/demultiplexers or dispersion compensators by enabling lower loss and broader bandwidth.

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

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.

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.

Structural tuning of guiding modes of line-defect waveguides of silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal slabs

We experimentally demonstrate the structural tuning of the waveguiding modes of line defects in photonic crystal (PC) slabs. By tuning the defect widths, we realized efficient single-mode waveguides that operate within photonic band gap frequencies in silicon-on-insulator PC slabs. The observed waveguiding characteristics agree very well with three-dimensional finite difference time-domain calculations. We also directly measured the propagation loss of the line defect waveguides and obtained a value of 6 dB/mm.