Enabling transistor-like action in photonic crystal waveguides using optical event horizons.

We show that dispersion and loss-engineered photonic crystal waveguides can support optical event horizons enabling the manipulation of a strong soliton pulse by a weaker control pulse within a 3 mm waveguide. Depending on the launching frequency of the weak control pulse, both blue and red soliton shifts are observed, while the soliton appears to be delayed by several pulse widths.

Designing photonic crystal waveguides for broadband four-wave mixing applications.

We present photonic crystal waveguide designs which exhibit large four-wave mixing efficiencies over a wide wavelength region. These designs are identified using an optimization process taking into account sophisticated figure-of-merits that depend on the pump bandwidth and the signal/pump tunability. The obtained designs achieve up to -18.9 dB conversion efficiency, tunable over a 10 nm tunability range. We also present alternative designs that are less efficient but have smaller power requirements and are far more compact.

Designing slow-light photonic crystal waveguides for four-wave mixing applications.

We discuss the optimization of photonic crystal waveguides for four-wave mixing (FWM) applications, taking into account linear loss and free-carrier effects. Suitable figures of merit are introduced in order to guide us through the choice of practical, high-efficiency designs requiring relatively low pump power and small waveguide length. In order to realistically perform the waveguide optimization process, we propose and validate an approximate expression for the FWM efficiency, which significantly alleviates our numerical calculations. Promising waveguide designs are identified by means of an exhaustive search, altering some structural parameters. Our approach aims to optimize the waveguides for nonlinear signal-processing applications based on the FWM.

Optimization of the storage capacity of slow light photonic crystal waveguides.

The storage capacity of slow light photonic crystal waveguides is maximized using a systematic procedure based on the optimization of various parameters of the structure. Both optical loss and dispersion-induced broadening are incorporated into the model. The results indicate that this procedure can provide up to a threefold increase in storage capacity.