Seoung Hun Lee

Optical Injection-Induced Polarization Switching Dynamics in 1.5-

We report the first experimental invetigation of the polarization-mode switching dynamics and injection-wavelength-dependent polarization-mode bistability of a 1.5-m wavelength single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) under external laser beam injection. An injection beam with polarization orthogonal to that of the stand-alone VCSEL caused polarization-mode instability and switching of the VCSEL output. By varying the optical injection detuning for fixed injection power observation was made of a novel form of polarization bistability which will have applications in a new type of all-optical flip-flop and signal processing scheme.

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We report a simple method of measuring the absolute values of the phase refractive index of an optical material of a flat plate shape over a wide spectral range at a single measurement run. A white-light interferometric technique with angle rotation of the optical plate sample located in one of the interferometer arms was used in this method. The validity of this method was proved by measuring the absolute phase refractive indices of flat plate samples of fused silica and BK7, and by comparing them with calculated values from their well-known Sellmeier dispersion formulas. The accuracy of this refractive index measurement method was within 0.002, which can be further improved by enhancing the angle measurement accuracy of the angle rotating stage used in this method.

m Wavelength Single-Mode Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

All-optical set-reset flip-flop operations of conventional circular cylindrical-shaped 1.55-μm wavelength single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have been demonstrated at a switching frequency of 1 GHz based on polarization bistability observed via injection current variation. The energy of set and reset pulses was lower than 4.5 fJ at a bias current of the VCSEL of 4 mA. Polarization bistable VCSELs will be useful for high-speed optical signal processing applications.

Absolute refractive index measurement method over a broad wavelength region based on white-light interferometry.

We present experimental and numerical study of temporal characteristics of injection-locked polarization switching of a conventional-type 1.55-μm wavelength single-mode vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Delayed recovery response of the main-mode of the VCSEL was observed when short and strong optical injection pulses of an orthogonal polarization to the VCSELs main polarization-mode were applied. Numerical analysis based on a spin-flip model describes that the relatively long upper level lifetimes compared to a short injection-pulse width and long cavity photon lifetimes cause delayed recovery response of the main-mode of the VCSEL. An optimum bias current of the VCSEL was also observed for the shortest recovery time of its free-running polarization mode after the orthogonal polarization beam pulse injection.

1-GHz All-Optical Flip-Flop Operation of Conventional Cylindrical-Shaped Single-Mode VCSELs Under Low-Power Optical Injection

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, a novel and simple method for measuring continuous dispersion spectrum of unclamped linear electro-optic (EO) coefficient using a white-light interferometry. This method detects phase changes of the interference patterns with and without an applied electric voltage, and allows a simultaneous measurement of wavelength and polarization dependent EO coefficients of birefringent materials. Both of the unclamped EO coefficients, r(13) (T) and r(33) (T), of a congruent LiNbO(3) (LN) crystal have been measured simultaneously with the method, and their continuous dispersion curves have been also obtained.

Experimental and numerical analysis on temporal dynamics of polarization switching in an injection-locked 1.55-μm wavelength VCSEL

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, observation of polarization bistability from 1.55-µm wavelength single-mode VCSELs of a conventional cylinder-shape under control of their driving current, and demonstration of all-optical flip-flop (AOFF) operations based on the bistability with optical set and reset pulse injection at a 50 MHz switching frequency. The injection pulse energy was less than 14 fJ. The average on-off contrast ratio of the flip-flopped signals was about 7 dB. These properties of the VCSELs will be potentially useful for future high-speed all-optical signal processing applications.

A novel method for measuring continuous dispersion spectrum of electro-optic coefficients of nonlinear materials

We report on a simple and direct method of measuring localized chromatic dispersion (CD) profiles of structured nanowaveguide devices using white-light interferometry. Phase change in the interference fringe of a white-light interferometer (WLI) caused by introducing a sample-under-test into one of the interferometer arms was used to determine a spectral profile of its accurate CD coefficients. This method was tested by measuring the spectral CD profiles of a localized silicon nanowaveguide and of a nonmembrane-type photonic crystal waveguide (PhCW) excluding their optical coupling sections. The measured local CD values of a 500-nm-wide single-line-defect (W1) PhCW with a lattice period of 460 nm and the hole radius of 165 nm formed on 220-nm-thick silicon layer of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer varied from 0.38 to 0.22 ps/(nm ·cm) for a wavelength range from 1530 to 1570 nm. This method will be very useful in determining the accurate CD profiles of nanophotonic waveguide devices.

All-optical Flip-flop Operation Based on Polarization Bistability of Conventional-type 1.55-㎛ Wavelength Single-mode VCSELs

Enhanced four-wave-mixing (FWM) effects have been observed with the help of large group-indices near the band edges in one-dimensional (1-D) silicon photonic crystal waveguides (Si PhCWs). A significant increase of the FWM conversion efficiency of about 17 dB was measured near the transmission band edge of the 1-D PhCW through an approximate 3.2 times increase of the group index from 8 to 24 with respect to the central transmission band region despite a large group-velocity dispersion. Numerical analyses based on the coupled-mode equations for the degenerated FWM process describe the experimentally measured results well. Our results indicate that the 1-D PhCWs are good candidates for large group-index enhanced nonlinearity devices even without having any special dispersion engineering.

A New Method of Measuring Localized Chromatic Dispersion of Structured Nanowaveguide Devices Using White-Light Interferometry

A simple argument is given that a traversable Cauchy horizon inside a black hole is incompatible with unitary black hole evolution. The argument assumes the validity of black hole complementarity and applies to a generic black hole carrying angular momentum and/or charge. In the second part of the paper we review recent work on the semiclassical geometry of two-dimensional charged black holes.

Enhanced four-wave-mixing effects by large group indices of one-dimensional silicon photonic crystal waveguides.

We review the temporal dynamics of the laser output spectrum and polarization state of 1.55 μm wavelength single-mode (SM) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) induced by external optical beam injection. Injection of an external continuous-wave laser beam to a gain-switched SM VCSEL near the resonance wavelength corresponding to its main polarization-mode output was critical for improvement of its laser pulse generation characteristics, such as pulse timing-jitter reduction, linewidth narrowing, pulse amplitude enhancement, and pulse width shortening. Pulse injection of pulse width shorter than the cavity photon lifetime into the SM VCSEL in the orthogonal polarization direction with respect to its main polarization mode caused temporal delay of the polarization recovery after polarization switching (PS), and its delay was found to be the minimum at an optimized bias current. Polarization-mode bistability was observed even in the laser output of an SM VCSEL of a standard circularly cylindrical shape and used for all-optical flip-flop operations with set and reset injection pulses of very low pulse energy of order of the 3.5~4.5 fJ.