Over the last few decades, there has been a growing interest in all-optical approaches to computing and information processing 1 . All-optical approaches do not suffer from the intrinsic slow response of electronic components and have the potential for signal routing, processing, multiplexing, and demultiplexing with speeds exceeding terahertz THz rates. As is the case for electronic logic gate...

We investigate all-optical switching in a multi-quantum-well semiconductor optical amplifier-based nonlinear polarization switch using optical pulses with duration of 200 fs at a central wavelength of 1520 nm. We show full recovery of the switch within 600 fs, in both the gain and absorption regime. We discuss the switching and recovery mechanisms using numerical simulations that are in qualita...

We present pump-probe measurements of an all-optical photonic crystal switch based on a nanocavity, resolving fast coherent temporal dynamics. The measurements demonstrate the importance of coherent effects typically neglected when considering nanocavity dynamics. In particular, we report the observation of an idler pulse and more than 10 dB parametric gain. The measurements are in good agreeme...

We have demonstrated all-optical switching operations by coupled resonator-waveguide systems in two-dimensional Si-based photonic crystals. These systems operate at extremely low power and with a very high switching speed compared with conventional devices using the same nonlinear mechanism due to the use of an ultrasmall resonator with a high quality factor. We also describe an all-optical seq...

The realization of an all-optical transistor, in which one "gate" photon controls a "source" light beam, is a long-standing goal in optics. By stopping a light pulse in an atomic ensemble contained inside an optical resonator, we realized a device in which one stored gate photon controls the resonator transmission of subsequently applied source photons. A weak gate pulse induces bimodal transmi...

quasicrystal Ayelet Ganany-Padowicz, Irit Juwiler, Ofer Gayer, Alon Bahabad, and Ady Arie Department of Physical Electronics, Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Sami Shamoon College of Engineering, Ashdod 77245, Israel Department of Physics and JILA, University of Colorado at Boulder and NIST, Boul...