Observation of femtojoule optical bistability involving fano resonances in high-Q/Vm silicon photonic crystal nanocavities

The authors observe experimentally optical bistability enhanced through Fano interferences in high-Q localized silicon photonic crystal resonances (Q∼30000 and modal volume ∼0.98 cubic wavelengths). This phenomenon is analyzed through nonlinear coupled-mode formalism, including the interplay of χ(3) effects such as two-photon absorption and related free-carrier dynamics, and optical Kerr as well as thermal effects and linear losses. Experimental and theoretical results demonstrate Fano resonance based bistable states with switching thresholds of 185μW and 4.5fJ internally stored cavity energy (∼540fJ consumed energy) in silicon for scalable optical buffering and logic.

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