All-optical logic operation of polarized light signals in highly nonlinear silicon hybrid plasmonic microring resonators

Performance analysis of an all-optical logic gate based on a single I/Q modulator with direct detection

This paper investigates the performance of an all-optical logic gate scheme based on a single in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) modulator with direct detection. The proposed scheme of an all-optical logic gate is simple, high speed, and easily reconfigured to realize 24 logic states by adjusting bias voltages, peak-to-peak voltages of the driven RF signals, and the phase shift. As the scheme to realize logic gates is based on the irregular use of a commercially available I/Q modulator and laser source, a specialized logic gate system including a laser, I/Q modulator, and driven RF module should be optimally designed to obtain the best performance. With the system's extinction ratio (ER) and Q-factor as metrics, the performance of the proposed logic gate scheme is analyzed theoretically and numerically in this paper. We first give a new theoretical model of the I/Q modulator. Next, taking the OR gate as an example, the simulations are carried out to analyze performance under the influence of some key factors in the system. Results show that the extinction ratio of the whole system is affected by the phase shift between the two arms of the I/Q modulator and the extinction ratios of two Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs), while Q-factor is further influenced by the output power of the laser and the insertion loss of the MZMs in the I/Q modulator. For an I/Q modulator with MZMs having an extinction ratio of 20 dB, the minimum laser output power to obtain a system's ER higher than 16 dB is 3 dBm, while in order to obtain a Q-factor higher than 6, the output power of the laser must not be <10  dBm.

Utilization of Field Enhancement in Plasmonic Waveguides for Subwavelength Light-Guiding, Polarization Handling, Heating, and Optical Sensing

Plasmonic nanostructures have attracted intensive attention for many applications in recent years because of the field enhancement at the metal/dielectric interface. First, this strong field enhancement makes it possible to break the diffraction limit and enable subwavelength optical waveguiding, which is desired for nanophotonic integrated circuits with ultra-high integration density. Second, the field enhancement in plasmonic nanostructures occurs only for the polarization mode whose electric field is perpendicular to the metal/dielectric interface, and thus the strong birefringence is beneficial for realizing ultra-small polarization-sensitive/selective devices, including polarization beam splitters, and polarizers. Third, plasmonic nanostructures provide an excellent platform of merging electronics and photonics for some applications, e.g., thermal tuning, photo-thermal detection, etc. Finally, the field enhancement at the metal/dielectric interface helps a lot to realize optical sensors with high sensitivity when introducing plasmonic nanostrutures. In this paper, we give a review for recent progresses on the utilization of field enhancement in plasmonic nanostructures for these applications, e.g., waveguiding, polarization handling, heating, as well as optical sensing.

Quasi-phase-matched four-wave mixing generation between C-band and mid-infrared regions using a symmetric hybrid plasmonic waveguide grating

A symmetric hybrid plasmonic waveguide (SHPW) configuration based on quasi-phase-matched (QPM) four-wave mixing (FWM) is proposed to realize efficient FWM conversion between the C-band and mid-infrared (mid-IR) regions. Due to the ability to allow strong confinement of light, an extremely large nonlinear parameter γ>10⁴  m^-1 W^-1 and a very low propagation loss ∼3×10^-3  dB/μm accompanying the sub-λ scale (effective mode area A_eff∼3×10^-2  μm²) are achieved by optimally designing the SHPW geometrical parameters. In addition, a QPM technique is adopted to achieve a relatively long effective length of FWM nonlinear process by constructing a long SHPW grating, thereby resulting in highly efficient wavelength conversion without rigorous dispersion engineering of waveguide structures. By using numerical simulations we have demonstrated that, for a pump wavelength of 1,800 nm, an efficient and flat FWM conversion of ∼-17  dB (∼-22  dB) could be realized around a target signal wavelength of the C-band: 1,530-1,565 nm (mid-IR: 2,118-2,180 nm), in a 1,000 μm-long grating with a serious phase mismatch.