Open AccessPhotosensitive and thermal nonlinear effects in chalcogenide photonic crystal cavities
Author(s) -
Michael W. Lee,
Christian Grillet,
Christelle Monat,
Eric Mägi,
Snjezana TomljenovicHanic,
Xin Gai,
Steve Madden,
DukYong Choi,
Douglas Bulla,
Barry LutherDavies,
Benjamin J. Eggleton
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.18.026695
Subject(s) - chalcogenide , materials science , optoelectronics , optics , photonic crystal , chalcogenide glass , photosensitivity , absorption (acoustics) , laser , refractive index , photonics , infrared , nonlinear optics , optical switch , physics , composite material
We investigate the photosensitive and thermo-optic nonlinear properties of chalcogenide glass photonic crystal (PhC) cavities at telecommunications wavelengths. We observe a photosensitive refractive index change in AMTIR-1 (Ge(33)As(12)Se(55)) material in the near-infrared, which is enhanced by light localization in the PhC cavity and manifests in a permanent blue-shift of the nanocavity resonance. Thermo-optic non-linear properties are thoroughly investigated by i) carrying out thermal bistable switching experiments, from which we determined thermal switching times of 63 μs and 93 μs for switch on and switch off respectively and ii) by studying heating of the cavity with a high peak power pulsed laser input, which shows that two-photon absorption is the dominant heating mechanism. Our measurements and analysis highlight the detrimental impact of near-infrared photosensitivity and two-photon absorption on cavity based nonlinear optical switching schemes. We conclude that glass compositions with lower two-photon absorption and more stable properties (reduced photosensitivity) are therefore required for nonlinear applications in chalcogenide photonic crystal cavities.