Nonlinear optical switch utilising organic conjugated material and four wave mixing techniques
AssigneesEnichem S.p.A., The University of Dublin
InventorsDuncan J. Westland, Vladimir Skarda, Werner Blau, Lorenzo Costa
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Abstract
A nonlinear all-optical switching device including a waveguide of an organic conjugated material which forms a nonlinear optical medium. The nonlinear material has an index of refraction which is a function of the local intensity of light. Light beams passing through the waveguide intersect and interact causing diffraction into secondary beams. The intensity of the diffracted beams is a function of the intensity and frequency of the intersecting light beams. The nonlinear material can respond extremely fast and provide a bandwidth exceeding 500 GHz.
Claims13
A waveguide structure for nonlinear optical switching of at least one light beam propagating in a waveguide, comprising:
- a substrate having a first flat surface;
- a film of a conjugated polymer material on said first flat surface, wherein sid conjugated polymer material is a member selected from the group consisting of polydiacetylenes and polythiophenes;
- said film being 0.1 to 10 .mu.m thick, and having a third order nonlinear optical susceptibility equal to or greater than 10.sup.-11 esu;
- means, including a second light beam intersecting said at least one light beam in an intersection region, for altering the refractive index of material in the intersection region;
- and
- wherein first and second coherent beams counterpropagate in said film, a third beam spatially overlaps portions of the first and second counterpropagating beams, and a fourth phase conjugate beam diffracted from said third beam counterpropagates along the path of said third beam, the intensity of said fourth beam being a function of the intensities of the first, second and third beams.
An all-optical switch using a waveguide of an optical material, comprising:
- a substrate having a first flat surface;
- a film of a conjugated polymer material on said first flat surface;
- wherein the conjugated polymer material is a member selected from the group consisting of polydiacetylenes and polythiophenes which have third order nonlinear optical susceptibility equal to or greater than 10.sup.-11 esu and a nonlinear switching frequency response of larger than 500 GHz;
- and
- wherein said conjugated polymer is a member selected from the group consisting of polythiophenes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.