Analysis of bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity

doi:10.1364/JOSAB.29.003335

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Analysis of bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity

Wataru Yoshiki and Takasumi Tanabe »View Author Affiliations

JOSA B, Vol. 29, Issue 12, pp. 3335-3343 (2012)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.29.003335

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Abstract

We model the nonlinear response of a silica toroid microcavity using coupled-mode theory and a finite-element method, and successfully obtain Kerr bistable operation that does not suffer from the thermo-optic effect by optimizing the fiber-cavity coupling. Our rigorous analysis reveals the possibility of demonstrating a Kerr bistable memory with a memory holding time of 500 ns at an extremely low energy consumption.

1. INTRODUCTION

Optical bistability is a fundamental physical phenomenon where it is possible for certain devices to have two stable transmission states. It occurs when the refractive index or the absorption of the nonlinear medium in an optical cavity is dependent on the light intensity. Optical bistable devices are considered to be important building blocks in all-optical signal processing for such components as optical memories and optical flip-flops [1

H. Tsuda and T. Kurokawa, “Construction of an all-optical flip-flop by combination of 2 optical triodes,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 57, 1724–1726 (1990). [CrossRef]

], and this phenomenon was extensively studied in the 1970s and 1980s [2

H. Gibbs, Optical Bistability: Controlling Light with Light (Academic, 1985).

]. However, at that time, the size of the cavity and the operating energy were too large to be considered for practical applications.

Recent progress in achieving higher-quality factors (

Q

) in ultrasmall microcavities on-chip [3

Y. Akahane, T. Asano, B. Song, and S. Noda, “High- $Q$ photonic nanocavity in a two-dimensional photonic crystal,” Nature 425, 944–947 (2003). [CrossRef]

T. Tanabe, M. Notomi, E. Kuramochi, A. Shinya, and H. Taniyama, “Trapping and delaying photons for one nanosecond in an ultrasmall high- $Q$ photonic-crystal nanocavity,” Nat. Photon. 1, 49–52 (2007). [CrossRef]

D. Armani, T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Ultra-high- $Q$ toroid microcavity on a chip,” Nature 421, 925–928 (2003). [CrossRef]

–6

K. Vahala, “Optical microcavities,” Nature 424, 839–846 (2003). [CrossRef]

] has refocused attention on optical bistability [7

M. Soljacic, M. Ibanescu, S. Johnson, Y. Fink, and J. Joannopoulos, “Optimal bistable switching in nonlinear photonic crystals,” Phys. Rev. E 66, 055601 (2002). [CrossRef]

], due to the possibility of achieving denser integration and lower energy consumption. Since the photon density in a cavity scales with

Q / V

, where

V

is the mode volume, a high-

Q

cavity with a small

V

enables us to use various nonlinearities at extremely low input powers; hence it allows optical bistability at an ultralow power.

Soljačić et al. [7

M. Soljacic, M. Ibanescu, S. Johnson, Y. Fink, and J. Joannopoulos, “Optimal bistable switching in nonlinear photonic crystals,” Phys. Rev. E 66, 055601 (2002). [CrossRef]

] demonstrated numerically that optical bistability based on Kerr nonlinearity is possible by using a microcavity at an ultralow driving power of 133 mW. A recent numerical study has reported Kerr bistability at 165 μW [8

M. Shafiei and M. Khanzadeh, “Low-threshold bistability in nonlinear microring tower resonator,” Opt. Express 18, 25509–25518 (2010). [CrossRef]

]. Various experiments have already been reported in silica microspheres [9

L. Collot, V. Lefevreseguin, M. Brune, J. Raimond, and S. Haroche, “Very high- $Q$ whispering-gallery mode resonances observed on fused-silica microspheres,” Europhys. Lett. 23, 327–334 (1993). [CrossRef]

], silicon photonic crystals [10

M. Notomi, A. Shinya, S. Mitsugi, G. Kira, E. Kuramochi, and T. Tanabe, “Optical bistable switching action of Si high- $Q$ photonic-crystal nanocavities,” Opt. Express 13, 2678–2687 (2005). [CrossRef]

,11

L.-D. Haret, T. Tanabe, E. Kuramochi, and M. Notomi, “Extremely low power optical bistability in silicon demonstrated using 1D photonic crystal nanocavity,” Opt. Express 17, 21108–21117 (2009). [CrossRef]

], and silicon microring resonators [12

V. Almeida and M. Lipson, “Optical bistability on a silicon chip,” Opt. Lett. 29, 2387–2389 (2004). [CrossRef]

], but by using the thermo-optic (TO) effect. Since the TO effect is accompanied by thermal accumulation, the response is relatively slow. To achieve a faster speed, the carrier-plasma effect has been utilized. This effect is the result of carrier generation [13

T. Tanabe, M. Notomi, S. Mitsugi, A. Shinya, and E. Kuramochi, “All-optical switches on a silicon chip realized using photonic crystal nanocavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 151112 (2005). [CrossRef]

,14

A. Shinya, S. Matsuo, Yosia, T. Tanabe, E. Kuramochi, T. Sato, T. Kakitsuka, and M. Notomi, “All-optical on-chip bit memory based on ultra high $Q$ InGaAsP photonic crystal,” Opt. Express 16, 19382–19387 (2008). [CrossRef]

]. The latest research has achieved on 4 bit optical random-access memory operation based on carrier nonlinearity, at a power consumption of only 30 nW, by using InGaAsP photonic-crystal nanocavities [15

K. Nozaki, A. Shinya, S. Matsuo, Y. Suzaki, T. Segawa, T. Sato, Y. Kawaguchi, R. Takahashi, and M. Notomi, “Ultralow-power all-optical RAM based on nanocavities,” Nat. Photonics 6, 248–252 (2012). [CrossRef]

]. The key to achieving the low power consumption is the smallness of the cavity

V

As introduced above, the power required to achieve optical bistability has been significantly reduced in recent years due to the high

Q / V

. However, all of the demonstrations use either TO or carrier-plasma effects to drive the bistability whose nonlinearities are accompanied by photon absorption. Recent advances on linear and nonlinear studies of microcavities and chip-based waveguide devices have made it possible to use them both for classical all-optical processing and for loss-sensitive applications such as quantum information processing [16

S. Spillane, T. Kippenberg, K. Vahala, K. Goh, E. Wilcut, and H. Kimble, “Ultrahigh- $Q$ toroidal microresonators for cavity quantum electrodynamics,” Phys. Rev. A 71, 013817 (2005). [CrossRef]

T. Yoshie, A. Scherer, J. Hendrickson, G. Khitrova, H. Gibbs, G. Rupper, C. Ell, O. Shchekin, and D. Deppe, “Vacuum Rabi splitting with a single quantum dot in a photonic crystal nanocavity,” Nature 432, 200–203 (2004). [CrossRef]

A. Politi, M. J. Cryan, J. G. Rarity, S. Yu, and J. L. O’Brien, “Silica-on-silicon waveguide quantum circuits,” Science 320, 646–649 (2008). [CrossRef]

–19

H. Takesue, Y. Tokura, H. Fukuda, T. Tsuchizawa, T. Watanabe, K. Yamada, and S.-i. Itabashi, “Entanglement generation using silicon wire waveguide,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 201108 (2007). [CrossRef]

]. With those applications in mind, we need to reduce significantly the power loss (consumption) of the bistable system. The ultimate goal is to use the optical Kerr effect because it does not absorb photons. In addition, the use of an ultra-high

Q

allows us to reduce the power scattering loss of the signal light from the system, and this will support all-optical information processing for loss-sensitive applications.

Various optical switches and memories using the Kerr effect have been demonstrated experimentally with various microcavities [20

M. Pöllinger and A. Rauschenbeutel, “All-optical signal processing at ultra-lowpowers in bottle microresonators using the Kerr effect,” Opt. Express 18, 17764–17775 (2010). [CrossRef]

I. Razdolskiy, S. Berneschi, G. N. Conti, S. Pelli, T. V. Murzina, G. C. Righini, and S. Soria, “Hybrid microspheres for nonlinear Kerr switching devices,” Opt. Express 19, 9523–9528 (2011). [CrossRef]

–22

G. Ctistis, E. Yuce, A. Hartsuiker, J. Claudon, M. Bazin, J.-M. Gerard, and W. L. Vos, “Ultimate fast optical switching of a planar microcavity in the telecom wavelength range,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 161114 (2011). [CrossRef]

]. It has been reported that the carrier-plasma effect and the losses related to two- and three-photon absorption are nearly negligible in silica due to its large bandgap [23

K. Ikeda and Y. Fainman, “Material and structural criteria for ultra-fast Kerr nonlinear switching in optical resonant cavities,” Solid-State Electron. 51, 1376–1380 (2007). [CrossRef]

]. Thus, there have been some preliminary demonstrations on Kerr switching and memory in hybrid silica microspheres [21

] and silica bottle microresonators [20

M. Pöllinger and A. Rauschenbeutel, “All-optical signal processing at ultra-lowpowers in bottle microresonators using the Kerr effect,” Opt. Express 18, 17764–17775 (2010). [CrossRef]

]. However, the TO effect can make the Kerr effect difficult to distinguish from other effects in silica. Therefore, we need to carefully analyze whether a Kerr bistable memory is feasible or not in the presence of the TO effect.

In this paper, we demonstrate numerically that an optical bistable memory based on the optical Kerr effect is possible without suffering from the TO effect by controlling the coupling between the cavity and the tapered fiber. We employ a silica toroid microcavity [5

D. Armani, T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Ultra-high- $Q$ toroid microcavity on a chip,” Nature 421, 925–928 (2003). [CrossRef]

] as a platform for the Kerr bistable memory, because it has an ultrahigh

Q

and is capable of integration on a chip. As discussed above, a high-

Q

cavity is attractive for achieving optical Kerr bistability and low-loss applications at the same time.

Our model combined coupled-mode theory (CMT) and the finite-element method (FEM). The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method can model Kerr bistability in a cavity very accurately. However, it has been shown that CMT can describe the behavior of the light in a cavity as accurately as FDTD [24

M. Yanik, S. Fan, and M. Soljacic, “High-contrast all-optical bistable switching in photonic crystal microcavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2739–2741 (2003). [CrossRef]

]; thus, we decided to use CMT and FEM. It should be noted that CMT is a powerful tool for analyzing the couping between two cavity modes [25

G. Kozyreff, J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, and J. Martorell, “Whispering-gallery-mode phase matching for surface second-order nonlinear optical processes in spherical microresonators,” Phys. Rev. A 77, 043817 (2008). [CrossRef]

,26

J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, G. Kozyreff, and J. Martorell, “Whispering gallery microresonators for second harmonic light generation from a low number of small molecules,” Nat. Commun. 2, 254 (2011). [CrossRef]

The paper is organized as follows. First in Section 2, we provide a simple picture of the physics that we are going to employ. In Section 3, we describe a numerical simulation model that combines CMT and FEM. In Section 4, we show the calculation result, and in Section 5 we discuss the energy consumption. We finish with a conclusion.

2. SIMPLE MODEL

As described in the previous section, it is still difficult to use the optical Kerr effect in ultrahigh-

Q

silica microcavities, even though the material has a large bandgap. This is because of the small light absorption at the surface, which is caused by a thin water layer [9

,27

H. Rokhsari, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Loss characterization in microcavities using the thermal bistability effect,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 3029–3031 (2004). [CrossRef]

]. Therefore, we need to analyze this carefully by using rigorous modeling and applying realistic physical parameters to reveal the conditions required for obtaining Kerr bistability. However, before undertaking a rigorous analysis, we start with a simple model to gain an intuitive understanding of the strategy for obtaining Kerr bistability. In this section, we pursue an analytical discussion about how we can obtain the Kerr effect without exhibiting any significant TO effect.

First we derive the relationship between the wavelength shift and the input energy required for Kerr nonlinearity. The energy

U

of an electromagnetic wave in a dielectric medium is given by [28

A. Yariv, Optical Electronics in Modern Communications (Oxford University, 1997).

]

U = \frac{1}{4} ε E_{0}^{2} V,

(1)

where

ε

E_{0}

, and

V

are the dielectric constant, the electric field amplitude, and the mode volume, respectively. Using Eq. (1) and

I = v ε {| E_{0} |}^{2} / 2

, where

v

is the light speed in the medium, we obtain the relation between the power density

I

and the optical energy

U

I = \frac{2 c}{n_{0}} \frac{U}{V},

(2)

where

c

is the velocity of light and

n_{0}

is the refractive index of the cavity medium. Then, the refractive index change caused by the Kerr effect is given by

Δ n_{Kerr} = n_{2} I = \frac{2 n_{2} c}{n_{0}} \frac{U}{V},

(3)

where

n_{2}

is the nonlinear refractive index. Equation (3) allows us to calculate the refractive index change as a function of the energy in the cavity.

Next we discuss the TO nonlinearity. The refractive index change caused by the TO effect

Δ n_{TO}

is given by

Δ n_{TO} = n_{0} ξ T .

(4)

Here,

ξ = (1 / n) (\partial n / \partial T)

is the TO coefficient. The energy required to increase the temperature by 1 K for volume

V

is given by

C ρ V

, where

C

is the heat capacity and

ρ

is the density of the material. Then, using Eq. (4), we obtain

Δ n_{TO} = \frac{n_{0} ξ}{C ρ} \frac{1}{V} U_{abs},

(5)

where

U_{abs}

is the energy absorbed by the material. Equations (3) and (5) describe the refractive index change at a given energy for the Kerr and TO effects, respectively. For the Kerr effect to be larger than the TO effect, the following condition is required:

\frac{Δ n_{Kerr}}{Δ n_{TO}} = \frac{2 n_{2} c ρ C}{n_{0}^{2} ξ} \frac{U}{U_{abs}} > 1 .

(6)

To gain a simple understanding, we assume a steady-state model. The light energy in the cavity is constant and generates heat at a constant rate. Thus,

U (t)

and

U_{abs} (t)

are expressed as

{\begin{cases} U (t) = U_{0} \\ \frac{d U_{abs} (t)}{d t} = - \frac{1}{τ_{diff}} U_{abs} + \frac{1}{τ_{abs}} U (t) \end{cases},

(7)

where

U_{0}

τ_{diff}

, and

τ_{abs}

are the steady energy in the cavity, the thermal relaxation time, and the thermal generation rate caused by photon absorption, respectively. When we neglect the thermal diffusion (

τ_{diff}^{- 1} = 0

), Eq. (6) is simply expressed as

t < \frac{2 n_{2} c ρ C}{n_{0}^{2} ξ} τ_{abs} .

(8)

This provides a direct view as to how we should design the cavity system in order to obtain the Kerr effect without the TO effect being too great. When we use the following parameters for

{SiO}_{2}

ξ = 5.2 \times 10^{- 6} K^{- 1}

n_{2} = 3.67 \times 10^{- 20} m^{2} / W

n = 1.47

C = 7.41 \times 10^{- 1} J / (g \cdot K)

, and

ρ = 2.65 g / {cm}^{3}

, Eq. (8) gives the following condition:

t < 3.84 τ_{abs} .

(9)

This equation provides a simple understanding of how we can achieve Kerr nonlinearity in

{SiO}_{2}

microcavities. Although the Kerr effect governs the refractive index change (

Δ n_{Kerr} > Δ n_{TO}

) at an early stage of the operation, the TO effect becomes dominant after a period of time given by Eq. (9). When we employ a

τ_{abs}

of 329 ns (the selection of this value is discussed in detail in Section 3.C), Eq. (9) gives

t < 1.26 μs

, which is the time during which

Δ n_{Kerr}

is larger than

Δ n_{TO}

. Note that even if we consider the thermal relaxation time in our model as

τ_{diff} = 8 μs

(obtained from Fig. 3), this time does not change greatly and is about 1.35 μs.

To achieve Kerr nonlinearity, we must complete our operation before this time, namely the time that the light is absorbed by the material, has passed. This simple picture is straightforward to understand. If we are to obtain a faster operation speed, we require a smaller

τ_{tot}

because it determines the rise and fall time of the light energy in the cavity.

τ_{tot}

is given by

τ_{tot}^{- 1} = τ_{loss}^{- 1} + τ_{coup}^{- 1} + τ_{abs}^{- 1}

, where

τ_{loss}

and

τ_{coup}

are the photon lifetimes defined by the loss rate that do not contribute to the generation of heat and coupling to the waveguides. Since

τ_{abs}

and

τ_{loss}

are mainly determined by the material and the structure that we use, the only parameter that we can control is

τ_{coup}

. This discussion suggests that optical Kerr operation is possible by controlling the coupling between the cavity and the waveguides, because it enables us to release light into the waveguides before it is absorbed by the material.

In the following section, we perform a rigorous analysis showing that Kerr operation is indeed possible by changing

τ_{coup}

3. RIGOROUS MODELING OF THE OPTICAL KERR EFFECT AND THERMO-OPTIC EFFECT IN A TOROID MICROCAVITY

A. CMT in Whispering-Gallery-Mode Resonator

First we describe our master equation based on CMT in a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonator to obtain the linear and nonlinear transmittance. The structure is shown in Fig. 1(a). Because a two-port system (a side-coupled cavity with one waveguide) makes the bistable operation difficult to observe, we focus on a side-coupled four-port system [29

H. Rokhsari and K. Vahala, “Ultralow loss, high $Q$ , four port resonant couplers for quantum optics and photonics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 253905 (2004). [CrossRef]

] throughout this paper. It consists of a toroid (ring) cavity and two waveguides for input and output light. A detailed discussion comparing side-coupled two- and four-port systems will be provided elsewhere [30

W. Yoshiki and T. Tanabe, “Analysis of four-port system for bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity,” in The 2nd International Symposium on Photonics and Electronics Convergence (ISPEC2012) (ISPEC, 2012), paper C-4.

]. Briefly, as discussed in Section 2, we need to make the coupling large in order to prevent heat accumulating in the system. However, the transmittance spectrum of a two-port system is shallower in an overcoupled configuration, which makes the switching contrast of the output light very low and difficult to distinguish. Hence, optical-bistable switching with high contrast is difficult to achieve in a two-port system in the presence of the TO effect.

Fig. 1. (a) Cavity structure used for numerical analysis. (b) Cross section of the mode-intensity profile of a toroid microcavity [32

M. Oxborrow, “Traceable 2-D finite-element simulation of the whispering-gallery modes of axisymmetric electromagnetic resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theor. Tech. 55, 1209–1218 (2007). [CrossRef]

The mode amplitude

a

in the cavity is given as [31

C. Manolatou, M. Khan, S. Fan, P. Villeneuve, H. Haus, and J. Joannopoulos, “Coupling of modes analysis of resonant channel add-drop filters,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 35, 1322–1331 (1999). [CrossRef]

]

\frac{d a}{d t} = [j ω_{0} - \frac{1}{2} (\frac{1}{τ_{abs}} + \frac{1}{τ_{loss}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 2}})] a + \sqrt{\frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}}} \exp (j θ) s_{in},

(10)

where

ω_{0}

is the resonant frequency of the cavity. The input wave

s_{in}

excites the counterclockwise (CCW) mode in the cavity. We assume an ideal cavity where there is no coupling between the clockwise (CW) and CCW modes.

τ_{coup 1}

and

τ_{coup 2}

are photon lifetimes determined by the coupling with the lower and upper waveguides, respectively.

θ

is the relative phase between the mode amplitude in the cavity and the optical wave in the lower waveguide and is given as

θ = 4 π^{2} n_{0} (R + r) (\frac{1}{λ_{0}} - \frac{1}{λ}) .

(11)

Here

R

r

λ

, and

λ_{0}

are the major and minor radii of the cavity [shown in Fig. 1(b)], the input wavelength, and the resonant wavelength of the cavity, respectively. Equation (11) shows that the phase between

a

and

s_{in}

becomes unmatched in an off-resonant state. Output waves

s_{out 1}

and

s_{out 2}

are given as

s_{out 1} = \exp (- j β_{1} d) \times [s_{in} - \sqrt{\frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}}} \exp (- j θ_{1}) a],

(12)

s_{out 2} = \exp (- j β_{2} d) \sqrt{\frac{1}{τ_{coup 2}}} a,

(13)

where

β_{1}

and

β_{2}

are the propagation constants of the lower and upper waveguides and

d

is the waveguide length. Note that the relative phase between the mode amplitude in the cavity

a

and the upper waveguide

s_{in}

is always zero because there is no incident wave in the upper waveguide.

When we use a slowly varying envelope approximation, i.e.,

a (t) = A (t) \exp (j ω t),

(14)

s_{in} (t) = S_{in} (t) \exp (j ω t),

(15)

we can rewrite Eq. (10) as

\frac{d A (t)}{d t} = [j \frac{2 π c}{n_{0}} (\frac{1}{λ_{0}} - \frac{1}{λ}) - \frac{1}{2} (\frac{1}{τ_{abs}} + \frac{1}{τ_{loss}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 2}})] A (t) + \sqrt{\frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}}} \exp (j θ) S_{in} (t) .

(16)

Here

A (t)

S_{in} (t)

, and

ω = 2 π c / (n_{0} λ)

are the envelopes of the cavity mode and the waveguide mode and the frequency of the input wave, respectively. Equation (16) is the master equation of the linear system. By using this equation, we now can calculate the energy in the cavity and the output power at an arbitrary time.

B. Modeling the Nonlinearities

To describe the nonlinear effects in our model, we take account of the nonlinear refractive index modulation caused by the Kerr effect (

Δ n_{Kerr}

) and the TO effect (

Δ n_{TO}

) in the master equation. (Note that the carrier-plasma effect is negligible in silica due to its large bandgap.) The nonlinearities in an optical cavity result in a shift in the resonant wavelength because the optical path length changes. Thus, the shift of the resonant wavelength of a cavity is given as

δ λ (t) = \frac{Δ n (t)}{n_{0}} λ_{0},

(17)

where

Δ n (t)

is the effective nonlinear refractive index change of the cavity. To add the nonlinear effects into Eqs. (11) and (16), we replace

n_{0}

and

λ_{0}

n_{o} + Δ n (t)

and

λ_{0} + δ λ (t)

, as

\frac{d A (t)}{d t} = [j \frac{2 π c}{n_{0} + Δ n (t)} (\frac{1}{λ_{0} + δ λ (t)} - \frac{1}{λ}) - \frac{1}{2} (\frac{1}{τ_{abs}} + \frac{1}{τ_{loss}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}} + \frac{1}{τ_{coup 2}})] A (t) + \sqrt{\frac{1}{τ_{coup 1}}} \exp (j θ) S_{in} (t),

(18)

θ = 4 π^{2} (n_{0} + Δ n (t)) (R + r) (\frac{1}{λ_{0} + δ λ (t)} - \frac{1}{λ}) .

(19)

These are the master equations that we used in our model, which take the nonlinearities into account.

Next, we describe how we calculated the nonlinear refractive index change

Δ n_{Kerr}

and

Δ n_{TO}

. We can directly calculate

Δ n_{Kerr}

from Eq. (3). Taking the spatial dependency into account, we obtain,

Δ n_{Kerr} (x, y, t) = n_{2} I (x, y, t) = \frac{2 n_{2} c}{n_{0}} {\tilde{U}}_{p} (x, y, t),

(20)

where

{\tilde{U}}_{p} (x, y, t)

is the energy density distribution of the cavity mode in

x

y

cross-sectional coordinates. It is given as

{\tilde{U}}_{p} (x, y, t) = \frac{U_{p} (t)}{2 π R} \tilde{I} (x, y),

(21)

where

U_{p} = {| A (t) |}^{2}

is the energy of the light stored in the cavity and

\tilde{I} (x, y)

is the normalized cross-sectional power density distribution of the WGM obtained by FEM (see [32

]). It is normalized as

\iint \tilde{I} (x, y) d x d y = 1

, and the profile is shown in Fig. 1(b).

The refractive index change

Δ n_{TO}

, which is induced by the TO effect, is described as

Δ n_{TO} (x, y, t) = n ξ [T (x, y, t) - 300 [K]] .

(22)

The cross-sectional temperature distribution is calculated by using two-dimensional FEM (COMSOL Multiphysics). By setting the heat source in the dielectric cavity as

Q^{'} (x, y, t) = {\begin{cases} τ_{abs}^{- 1} {\tilde{U}}_{p} (x, y, t), & in cavity, \\ 0, & in air, \end{cases}

(23)

where

τ_{abs}^{- 1}

is the thermal generation rate caused by the material absorption, we can obtain the temperature

T (x, y, t)

at any time and at any position by performing a FEM calculation.

Finally, we obtain the effective nonlinear refractive index change

Δ n (t)

Δ n (t) = \frac{\iint [Δ n_{TO} (x, y, t) + Δ n_{Kerr} (x, y, t)] \tilde{I} (x, y) d x d y}{\iint \tilde{I} (x, y) d x d y} .

(24)

Now by solving Eq. (18) sequentially using Eqs. (17)–(24), we can obtain the light energy in the cavity

U_{p} (t)

and the output powers

P_{out 1} = {| S_{out 1} |}^{2}

and

P_{out 2} = {| S_{out 2} |}^{2}

C. Determining the Absorption and the Photon Lifetimes

The total photon lifetime

τ_{tot}

is defined as

τ_{tot} = (τ_{mat}^{- 1} + τ_{water}^{- 1} + τ_{cont}^{- 1} + τ_{rad}^{- 1} + τ_{surf}^{- 1} {+ τ_{coup 1}^{- 1} + τ_{coup 2}^{- 1})}^{- 1},

(25)

where

τ_{mat}

τ_{water}

τ_{cont}

τ_{rad}

τ_{surf}

τ_{coup 1}

, and

τ_{coup 2}

are photon lifetimes determined by the absorption of the material, water absorption that is usually present on the surface of the cavity, absorption caused by surface contamination, radiation loss, scattering loss, coupling to the lower waveguide, and coupling to the upper waveguide, respectively. Since this expression is very complicated, we define the photon lifetime that is related to the absorption as

τ_{abs}^{- 1} = τ_{mat}^{- 1} + τ_{water}^{- 1} + τ_{cont}^{- 1}

, losses to the outside of the cavity

τ_{loss}^{- 1} = τ_{rad}^{- 1} + τ_{surf}^{- 1}

, and the couplings

τ_{coup 1, 2}

. By using these photon lifetimes, we can simplify our analysis, because

τ_{abs}

contributes on the generation of heat, but the other factors (

τ_{loss}

and

τ_{coup 1, 2}

) do not.

Here we describe the photon lifetimes that we used in our analysis. The material absorption of silica at telecom wavelengths is usually very small (

α = 0.2 dB / km

[33

T. Miya, Y. Terunuma, T. Hosaka, and T. Miyashita, “Ultimate low-loss single-mode fibre at 1.55 μm,” Electron. Lett. 15, 106–108 (1979). [CrossRef]

]), but it is known that silica toroid microcavities have much larger absorption due to the water layer and contamination on their surfaces. And in practice the

Q

factor is limited by these absorptions [9

]. Thus, we decided to consider two cases, which we call an ideal case and a realistic (worst) case. In an ideal case, we assume that the absorption loss is determined by solely the material (this means that the absorption loss is extremely small) and the experimental

Q

is limited by the losses to the outside of the cavity

τ_{loss}^{- 1}

. On the other hand, we assume that the experimental

Q

is limited by the absorption loss

τ_{abs}^{- 1}

in a realistic case. This implies the worst case in terms of thermal accumulation, because a large part of the incident light eventually turns into heat. Any result should be better than that obtained with this latter condition.

To consider those two cases, first we fix the intrinsic photon lifetime

τ_{int} = {(τ_{abs}^{- 1} + τ_{loss}^{- 1})}^{- 1}

at 329 ns (corresponding to

Q_{int} = 4 \times 10^{8}

[34

T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Demonstration of ultra-high- $Q$ small mode volume toroid microcavities on a chip,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 6113–6115 (2004). [CrossRef]

], where

Q_{int}

is the intrinsic

Q

), since this is the record largest experimental

τ_{int}

yet obtained. In the ideal case we disregard losses other than the intrinsic material absorption; so we use

τ_{abs} = 164 μs

(corresponding to

Q_{abs} ≃ Q_{mat} = 2 \times 10^{11}

[35

A. Savchenkov, V. Ilchenko, A. Matsko, and L. Maleki, “Kilohertz optical resonances in dielectric crystal cavities,” Phys. Rev. A 70, 051804 (2004). [CrossRef]

]) and

τ_{loss} = 330 ns

; i.e.,

τ_{int}^{- 1} ≃ τ_{loss}^{- 1} ≫ τ_{abs}^{- 1}

. On the other hand, we use

τ_{abs} = 329 ns

(corresponding to

Q_{abs} = 4 \times 10^{8}

[27

H. Rokhsari, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Loss characterization in microcavities using the thermal bistability effect,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 3029–3031 (2004). [CrossRef]

,34

T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Demonstration of ultra-high- $Q$ small mode volume toroid microcavities on a chip,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 6113–6115 (2004). [CrossRef]

]) and

τ_{loss} = \infty

for the realistic case. This

Q_{abs}

value is the same as the highest experimentally obtained

Q_{int}

, for the reason discussed above; i.e.,

τ_{int}^{- 1} ≃ τ_{abs}^{- 1} ≫ τ_{loss}^{- 1}

Although

τ_{int}

is determined by the material and structure, we can control

τ_{coup 1}

and

τ_{coup 2}

by adjusting the distance between the fiber and the cavity [36

S. Spillane, T. Kippenberg, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Ideality in a fiber-taper-coupled microresonator system for application to cavity quantum electrodynamics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 043902 (2003). [CrossRef]

]. With this in mind, we conducted numerical simulations for various

τ_{coup 2}

values. Note that

τ_{coup 1}

is controlled to satisfy

τ_{coup 1} = {(τ_{int}^{- 1} + τ_{coup 2}^{- 1})}^{- 1}

and thus achieve critical coupling [24

M. Yanik, S. Fan, and M. Soljacic, “High-contrast all-optical bistable switching in photonic crystal microcavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2739–2741 (2003). [CrossRef]

,31

,37

M. Cai, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Observation of critical coupling in a fiber taper to a silica-microsphere whispering-gallery mode system,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 74–77 (2000). [CrossRef]

] between the cavity and the lower waveguide. In this condition, the power transmittance through the lower waveguide

T_{out 1} = P_{out 1} / P_{in}

decreases to zero on resonance, and high contrast can be obtained between two output states [30

4. NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS

A. An Ideal Case: Small Material Absorption

In this section, we show that a Kerr bistable memory is easily feasible, without careful adjustment of

τ_{coup}

, if only the inherent material absorption of silica is present.

First, we input a rectangular pulse to investigate the refractive index changes

Δ n_{Kerr}

and

Δ n_{TO}

. The result is shown in Fig. 2(a), where

τ_{coup 2}

is equal to

τ_{int}

. It shows that

Δ n_{Kerr}

is always larger than

Δ n_{TO}

, which tells us that the influence of the absorption-induced thermal generation is nearly negligible. Hence the Kerr effect is easily obtained without it suffering from the TO effect.

Fig. 2. Figures obtained in an ideal case where the absorption loss in the cavity is determined only by the material. (a)

Δ n_{Kerr}

and

Δ n_{TO}

versus time when a 6 μW rectangular pulse is input. The wavelength detuning

δ

between the input light and the initial cavity resonance is 27 fm.

τ_{coup 2}

is set equal to

τ_{int}

. (b)

P_{out 1}

versus

P_{in}

of a triangular input pulse with different

δ

values, where

P_{out 1} = {| s_{out 1} |}^{2}

. (c)

P_{out 2}

versus

P_{in}

with different

δ

, where

P_{out 2} = {| s_{out 2} |}^{2}

δ = 13

, 20, and 27 fm correspond to

(\sqrt{3} / 2) Δ λ_{FWHM}

(3 \sqrt{3} / 4) Δ λ_{FWHM}

, and

\sqrt{3} Δ λ_{FWHM}

, respectively.

Δ λ_{FWHM}

is the full-width at half-maximum of the cavity resonant spectrum width. (

Δ λ_{FWHM} ≃ 15 fm

). (d) Optical bistable memory operation. The solid, dotted, and dashed curves represent

P_{in}

P_{out 1}

, and

P_{out 2}

, respectively.

Next, we input a triangular pulse to investigate the relationship between the input and output of the system. To allow us to charge and discharge the cavity gradually, we set the pulse rising/falling rate of the triangular inputs at

d P_{in} / d t = 62.5 nW / μs

. Figures 2(b) and 2(c) are plotted from the input–output response of a triangular input with different detuning values

δ

. The lower coupling photon lifetime

τ_{coup 1}

is set equal to

{(τ_{int}^{- 1} + τ_{coup 2}^{- 1})}^{- 1}

to achieve critical coupling. When

δ

is greater than 20 fm, clear hysteresis is observed, which is direct evidence of optical bistability. Optical bistability is observed in the longer side of the wavelength detuning, because the Kerr effect increases the refractive index (shifts the resonance toward the longer wavelength). Note that we obtained a large contrast between the two bistable states in Fig. 2(b) because the cavity transmittance

P_{out 1}

falls to zero on resonance in the critical coupling [24

M. Yanik, S. Fan, and M. Soljacic, “High-contrast all-optical bistable switching in photonic crystal microcavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2739–2741 (2003). [CrossRef]

Finally, we performed optical memory operations as shown in Fig. 2(d). Again, we set

τ_{coup 2}

equal to

τ_{int}

and the detuning

δ

equal to 27 fm. The solid curve is an input with a drive power

P_{in}^{drive}

of 3.2 μW. The peak power of the 0.8 μs square set pulse is

P_{in}^{set} = 5 μW

. To reset the system, we reduce the input power to

P_{in}^{reset} = 2 μW

for a duration of 0.8 μs, which we call a reset pulse. The duration of the negative reset pulse must be longer than the discharging time of the cavity, which is equal to

τ_{tot}

; otherwise the cavity does not reset. The set and reset pulses are input at

t = 8

and 20.8 μs, respectively.

P_{out 2}

(shown as the dashed curve) rises to high (ON) state when the set pulse is input. It maintains the ON state until the reset pulse is injected. After the reset pulse has been input,

P_{out 2}

drops to the low (OFF) state and maintains it.

P_{out 1}

[indicated by the dotted curve in Fig. 2(d)] shows the inverse behavior of

P_{out 2}

. Figure 2(d) clearly shows optical memory operation, which is based on Kerr nonlinearity. Although the “memory holding time” demonstrated with this calculation [shown in Fig. 2(d)] is about 30 μs, it can be much larger, since

P_{out 1}

and

P_{out 2}

exhibit an almost plateau response due to the small material absorption.

B. A Realistic Case: Large Material Absorption

As shown in Section 4.A, the realization of a Kerr bistable memory is feasible without it suffering from the TO effect, even when the coupling is not large, if only the inherent absorption of silica is present in the cavity. In reality, however, other sources of absorption occur in a microcavity, such as surface absorptions caused by water and contamination. Thus, in this section, we use

τ_{abs} = 329 ns

to simulate a case with faster thermal generation. As discussed above, here we assume that the

Q_{int}

of the cavity is limited by absorption and not by losses to the outside of the cavity, since it appears to be the worst (but realistic case) for toroid microcavities. We employ

τ_{abs}

, which is derived from the highest experimental

Q_{int}

(

τ_{abs} = 329 ns

corresponds to

Q_{int} = 4 \times 10^{8}

). If we can clarify the requirements for demonstrating a Kerr bistable memory under this condition, it is a significant step toward the experimental realization of a Kerr bistable memory in silica toroid microcavities.

First, in a similar way to that shown in Fig. 2(a), we employ a rectangular pulse to obtain the refractive index change

Δ n_{Kerr}

and

Δ n_{TO}

. The calculation results are shown in Fig. 3 for three different

τ_{coup 2}

values (

τ_{coup 1}

is adjusted to satisfy

τ_{coup 1}^{- 1} = τ_{coup 2}^{- 1} + τ_{int}^{- 1}

). Figure 3 shows that

Δ n_{TO}

is larger than

Δ n_{Kerr}

in all three cases when

t

is larger than

\sim 2.3 μs

. This number gives us the upper limit of the Kerr memory holding time without the memory suffering from the TO effect. It also tells us that this number is insensitive to

τ_{coup 2}

. This result is consistent with Eq. (8) obtained from a simple model, where the equation is dependent on

τ_{abs}

but independent of

τ_{coup}

. Figure 3 also shows the effect of the different charging speeds caused by different

τ_{coup 2}

values. The cavity charging time is much faster for

τ_{coup 2} = τ_{int} / 100

, which allows the cavity to reach a plateau

Δ n_{Kerr}

domain much faster. This enables us to have a longer “Kerr memory usable” regime, which allows us to use the cavity for longer as an optical Kerr memory. Figure 3 shows that we can maximize the Kerr dominant “Kerr memory usable” regime by setting

τ_{coup 2}

as small as possible. Again, this result is consistent with that obtained from the simple analysis described in Section 2.

Fig. 3.

Δ n_{Kerr}

(solid curve) and

Δ n_{TO}

(dashed curve) versus time for different

τ_{coup 2}

values in a realistic case. The input pulse power is set at

500 \times {(Q_{tot}^{τ_{coup 2} = τ_{int} / 100} / Q_{tot})}^{2}

in microwatts. The detuning

δ

is set at

\sqrt{3} Δ λ_{FWHM}

, where

Δ λ_{FWHM}

is 15 fm, 85 fm, and 782 pm when

τ_{coup 2}

τ_{int}

τ_{int} / 10

, and

τ_{int} / 100

, respectively.

Next, we show how we can obtain Kerr optical bistability when the absorption is large. Figures 4(a) and 4(b) show the input and output power relationships (

P_{out 1}

and

P_{out 2}

) for different

τ_{coup 2}

values when a triangular pulse is input. As shown in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b), a hysteresis loop is observed when

τ_{coup 2} = τ_{int} / 100

, but the loops are deformed when

τ_{coup 2} \geq τ_{int} / 10

. This is because the light cannot charge and discharge the cavity quickly enough before the heat accumulates in the system when

τ_{coup 2}

is large. Again, we obtained a clear hysteresis loop only when we made the coupling strong (i.e.,

τ_{coup 2}

is small).

Fig. 4. Input–output response of a triangular pulse input in a realistic case. (a)

P_{out 1}

versus

P_{in}

for different

τ_{coup 2}

. (b)

P_{out 2}

versus

P_{in}

for different

τ_{coup 2}

. The

x

-axis and

y

-axis are normalized as

P_{out 1}^{\max} = P_{out 2}^{\max} = P_{in}^{\max} = 1

. The detuning

δ

is set at

\sqrt{3} Δ λ_{FWHM}

. The input pulsewidth is 15 μs, 3 μs, and 0.3 μs and the pulse height is 4.5 μW, 160 μW, and 15 mW when

τ_{coup 2}

τ_{int}

τ_{int} / 10

, and

τ_{int} / 100

, respectively.

Finally, the memory operation for various

τ_{coup 2}

values is shown in Fig. 5. Since the response speeds of

P_{out 1}

and

P_{out 2}

depend on the total photon lifetime

τ_{tot}

, we normalized the temporal axis

t

τ_{tot}

. Figure 5 shows clearly that the reset pulse does not work when

τ_{coup 2} = τ_{int}

and

τ_{int} / 10

, and the memory operation cannot be obtained under this condition. If the system is operating in the Kerr dominant regime, we should be able to reset the state by injecting a negative reset pulse. The pulsewidth needed for the reset pulse is

> τ_{tot}

, since we can discharge the cavity within this time. However, Fig. 5 shows that significant heat is accumulating in the system, which prevents the system from resetting because

Δ n_{TO}

cannot be reset by such a short negative pulse due to its much longer relaxation time.

Fig. 5. Optical memory operation in a realistic case, when

δ

\sqrt{3} Δ_{FWHM}

. The input power of the drive light is 2 μW, 80 μW, and 7.3 mW, when

τ_{coup 2}

τ_{int}

τ_{int} / 10

, and

τ_{int} / 100

, respectively. The horizontal axis is normalized with the photon lifetime

τ_{tot}

and the vertical axes are normalized as

P_{out 1}^{\max} = P_{out 2}^{\max} = P_{in}^{\max} = 1

On the other hand, when

τ_{coup 2} \leq τ_{int} / 100

, we can successfully set and reset the system, and use the device as a Kerr bistable memory. However, the TO effect cannot be eliminated completely even in this case, and thus there is a holding time.

P_{out 1}

is automatically switched from ON to OFF, or vice versa for

P_{out 2}

, due to the thermal accumulation. Figure 5 shows that the memory holding time for the realistic case is about 500 ns. This value is inconsistent with the length of the “Kerr memory usable” regime shown in Fig. 3 since the thermal nonlinearity depends on the accumulation of

U_{abs}

while the Kerr nonlinearity depends on the instantaneous

U_{p}

In this section we achieved Kerr bistable memory operation and obtained a sufficiently long memory holding time of 500 ns by allowing the system to charge and discharge quickly by adjusting

τ_{coup 2}

5. DISCUSSION: POWER CONSUMPTION

We showed in previous sections that Kerr bistable operation is possible by adopting a large coupling constant. The basic idea is to allow the light to charge and discharge before it turns into heat. However, stronger coupling with waveguides (i.e., a smaller

τ_{coup 2}

) results in a lower total

Q

, which decreases the photon density in a cavity and makes the nonlinearity small. Hence, there is a tradeoff between operating speed and operating power.

Here, we consider two measures for evaluating the loss of our system:

Q_{int}

and

U_{cons}

Q_{int}

is the figure of merit of a cavity, whose value gives the cavity loss, and

U_{cons}

is the energy consumed for the operation. We often want to increase

Q_{int}

and reduce

U_{cons}

to build a lossless system. Table 1 compares these values for different systems. A bistable memory based on an ultrahigh-

Q

silica toroid microcavity with Kerr nonlinearity has a clear advantage over other schemes in terms of both losses. The lossless nature of this memory is the advantage of this system.

Table 1. Comparison of the Power Consumption of Different Systems

System Type	Material	Nonlinearity	$Q_{int}$	$P_{drive}$	$U_{cons}$ (^a)	Exp./Cal.	Refs.
Microring cavity	Si	Thermo-optic	$\approx 3 \times 10^{5}$	800 μW	$3.7 \times 10^{- 12} J$	Exp.	[12 V. Almeida and M. Lipson, “Optical bistability on a silicon chip,” Opt. Lett. 29, 2387–2389 (2004). [CrossRef] ]
Photonic crystal	InGaAsP	Carrier	$1.7 \times 10^{6}$	30 nW	$1.54 \times 10^{- 16} J$	Exp.	[15 K. Nozaki, A. Shinya, S. Matsuo, Y. Suzaki, T. Segawa, T. Sato, Y. Kawaguchi, R. Takahashi, and M. Notomi, “Ultralow-power all-optical RAM based on nanocavities,” Nat. Photonics 6, 248–252 (2012). [CrossRef] ]
Photonic crystal	Semiconductor	Kerr	557	133 mW	$2.0 \times 10^{- 17} J$ (^b)	Calc.	[7 M. Soljacic, M. Ibanescu, S. Johnson, Y. Fink, and J. Joannopoulos, “Optimal bistable switching in nonlinear photonic crystals,” Phys. Rev. E 66, 055601 (2002). [CrossRef] ]
Toroid microcavity	${SiO}_{2}$	Kerr	$4 \times 10^{8}$	7.3 mW	$2.6 \times 10^{- 23} J$ (^b)	Calc.	This work

^a Estimated from the cavity resonance shift of

(1 / 2) Δ λ_{FWHM}

. We assume no thermal and carrier diffusion.

^b The energy change caused by the resonant wavelength shift

Δ U = U_{HWHM} ((1 / 2) Δ λ_{FWHM} / (λ_{0} + (1 / 2) Δ λ_{FWHM}))

is regarded as

U_{cons}

, where

U_{HWHM}

is the energy that can cause a resonant wavelength shift of

(1 / 2) Δ λ_{FWHM}

by using the Kerr effect.

First, a system with a high

Q_{int}

yields a low loss, because

Q_{int}

corresponds to the fundamental loss characteristics of a cavity. As shown in Table 1, the

Q_{int}

of a toroid cavity is much higher than that of other types of cavities. Furthermore, we would like to note that both linear and nonlinear losses are significant in other systems, especially those that use TO and carrier-based nonlinearities to achieve bistability. This is because carrier generation is unavoidable. Free carrier absorption (FCA) significantly decreases both the

Q_{int}

and the transmittance of the system [38

P. Barclay, K. Srinivasan, and O. Painter, “Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper,” Opt. Express 13, 801–820 (2005). [CrossRef]

]. On the other hand, a Kerr bistable memory does not generate carriers and hence the system does not suffer from FCA loss.

Secondly,

U_{cons}

is extremely low in our system because Kerr nonlinearity does not absorb photons.

U_{cons}

is the energy consumed for a bistable operation. We can estimate

U_{cons}

from the required refractive index change, which is needed to obtain the cavity resonance shift for the operation. The values are large in memories based on heat and carrier even though they have large nonlinear efficiencies, which is because they incorporate photon absorption. On the other hand, the total photon number for the Kerr effect remains unchanged after the operation. Only the wavelength (energy) of the photons changes, which results in an extremely low energy consumption. Hence

U_{cons}

is almost negligible as shown in Table 1.

As shown in Fig. 5, we need

P_{in}^{drive} = 7.3 mW

to drive the system, which is significantly smaller than the value shown in [7

M. Soljacic, M. Ibanescu, S. Johnson, Y. Fink, and J. Joannopoulos, “Optimal bistable switching in nonlinear photonic crystals,” Phys. Rev. E 66, 055601 (2002). [CrossRef]

], which uses the same Kerr nonlinearity. This is due to the high

Q_{int}

of our system. However, this value is still larger than the experimentally demonstrated value in a photonic-crystal nanocavity using carrier-based nonlinearity [15

]. Since the coefficients of carrier nonlinearities in semiconductor materials are normally larger than the Kerr nonlinearity in

{SiO}_{2}

, it is not an easy task to reduce the driving power of our system to the same level. However, glass has a low propagation loss [39

J. F. Bauters, M. J. R. Heck, D. D. John, J. S. Barton, C. M. Bruinink, A. Leinse, R. G. Heideman, D. J. Blumenthal, and J. E. Bowers, “Planar waveguides with less than $0.1 dB / m$ propagation loss fabricated with wafer bonding,” Opt. Express 19, 24090–24101 (2011). [CrossRef]

,40

H. Lee, T. Chen, J. Li, O. Painter, and K. J. Vahala, “Ultra-low-loss optical delay line on a silicon chip,” Nat. Commun. 3, 867 (2012). [CrossRef]

], which is usually difficult to obtain with devices made of semiconductors.

Although the driving power

P_{drive}

of our system is not necessarily the smallest, the linear, nonlinear, and consumption losses are significantly smaller than those of other devices. With this in mind, this device is attractive for applications that require high efficiency

η = P_{out} / P_{in}

, such as quantum information processing [18

A. Politi, M. J. Cryan, J. G. Rarity, S. Yu, and J. L. O’Brien, “Silica-on-silicon waveguide quantum circuits,” Science 320, 646–649 (2008). [CrossRef]

6. CONCLUSION

We rigorously modeled the Kerr and the TO effects in a silica toroid microcavity by combining CMT and FEM. We gained a clear understanding of the impact of adjusting the coupling, and showed that Kerr optical bistable memory operation is possible by adjusting the coupling between the cavity and the waveguides. The memory holding time was about 500 ns. Although the driving power was 7.3 mW, the energy consumed by the system was extremely low. This is because unlike other nonlinearities such as carriers of TO effects, Kerr nonlinearity does not absorb photons. In addition due to the ultrahigh-

Q

of the system, the energy loss outside the system is also low. Our Kerr bistable memory in a silica toroid microcavity exhibits extremely low loss and is thus suitable for applications such as quantum signal processing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported in part by the Strategic Information and Communications R&D Promotion Programme (SCOPE) from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Canon Foundation, the Support Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology Research, Foundation, and the Leading Graduate School program for “Science for Development of Super Mature Society” from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in Japan.

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23.	K. Ikeda and Y. Fainman, “Material and structural criteria for ultra-fast Kerr nonlinear switching in optical resonant cavities,” Solid-State Electron. 51, 1376–1380 (2007). [CrossRef]
24.	M. Yanik, S. Fan, and M. Soljacic, “High-contrast all-optical bistable switching in photonic crystal microcavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2739–2741 (2003). [CrossRef]
25.	G. Kozyreff, J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, and J. Martorell, “Whispering-gallery-mode phase matching for surface second-order nonlinear optical processes in spherical microresonators,” Phys. Rev. A 77, 043817 (2008). [CrossRef]
26.	J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, G. Kozyreff, and J. Martorell, “Whispering gallery microresonators for second harmonic light generation from a low number of small molecules,” Nat. Commun. 2, 254 (2011). [CrossRef]
27.	H. Rokhsari, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Loss characterization in microcavities using the thermal bistability effect,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 3029–3031 (2004). [CrossRef]
28.	A. Yariv, Optical Electronics in Modern Communications (Oxford University, 1997).
29.	H. Rokhsari and K. Vahala, “Ultralow loss, high $Q$ , four port resonant couplers for quantum optics and photonics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 253905 (2004). [CrossRef]
30.	W. Yoshiki and T. Tanabe, “Analysis of four-port system for bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity,” in The 2nd International Symposium on Photonics and Electronics Convergence (ISPEC2012) (ISPEC, 2012), paper C-4.
31.	C. Manolatou, M. Khan, S. Fan, P. Villeneuve, H. Haus, and J. Joannopoulos, “Coupling of modes analysis of resonant channel add-drop filters,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 35, 1322–1331 (1999). [CrossRef]
32.	M. Oxborrow, “Traceable 2-D finite-element simulation of the whispering-gallery modes of axisymmetric electromagnetic resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theor. Tech. 55, 1209–1218 (2007). [CrossRef]
33.	T. Miya, Y. Terunuma, T. Hosaka, and T. Miyashita, “Ultimate low-loss single-mode fibre at 1.55 μm,” Electron. Lett. 15, 106–108 (1979). [CrossRef]
34.	T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Demonstration of ultra-high- $Q$ small mode volume toroid microcavities on a chip,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 6113–6115 (2004). [CrossRef]
35.	A. Savchenkov, V. Ilchenko, A. Matsko, and L. Maleki, “Kilohertz optical resonances in dielectric crystal cavities,” Phys. Rev. A 70, 051804 (2004). [CrossRef]
36.	S. Spillane, T. Kippenberg, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Ideality in a fiber-taper-coupled microresonator system for application to cavity quantum electrodynamics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 043902 (2003). [CrossRef]
37.	M. Cai, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Observation of critical coupling in a fiber taper to a silica-microsphere whispering-gallery mode system,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 74–77 (2000). [CrossRef]
38.	P. Barclay, K. Srinivasan, and O. Painter, “Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper,” Opt. Express 13, 801–820 (2005). [CrossRef]
39.	J. F. Bauters, M. J. R. Heck, D. D. John, J. S. Barton, C. M. Bruinink, A. Leinse, R. G. Heideman, D. J. Blumenthal, and J. E. Bowers, “Planar waveguides with less than $0.1 dB / m$ propagation loss fabricated with wafer bonding,” Opt. Express 19, 24090–24101 (2011). [CrossRef]
40.	H. Lee, T. Chen, J. Li, O. Painter, and K. J. Vahala, “Ultra-low-loss optical delay line on a silicon chip,” Nat. Commun. 3, 867 (2012). [CrossRef]

OCIS Codes
(190.1450) Nonlinear optics : Bistability
(140.3948) Lasers and laser optics : Microcavity devices
(130.3990) Integrated optics : Micro-optical devices

ToC Category:
Lasers and Laser Optics

History
Original Manuscript: August 7, 2012
Revised Manuscript: October 20, 2012
Manuscript Accepted: October 20, 2012
Published: November 16, 2012

Virtual Issues
December 4, 2012 Spotlight on Optics

Citation
Wataru Yoshiki and Takasumi Tanabe, "Analysis of bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 29, 3335-3343 (2012)
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/josab/abstract.cfm?URI=josab-29-12-3335

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K. Ikeda and Y. Fainman, “Material and structural criteria for ultra-fast Kerr nonlinear switching in optical resonant cavities,” Solid-State Electron. 51, 1376–1380 (2007). [CrossRef]
M. Yanik, S. Fan, and M. Soljacic, “High-contrast all-optical bistable switching in photonic crystal microcavities,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2739–2741 (2003). [CrossRef]
G. Kozyreff, J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, and J. Martorell, “Whispering-gallery-mode phase matching for surface second-order nonlinear optical processes in spherical microresonators,” Phys. Rev. A 77, 043817 (2008). [CrossRef]
J. L. Dominguez-Juarez, G. Kozyreff, and J. Martorell, “Whispering gallery microresonators for second harmonic light generation from a low number of small molecules,” Nat. Commun. 2, 254 (2011). [CrossRef]
H. Rokhsari, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Loss characterization in microcavities using the thermal bistability effect,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 3029–3031 (2004). [CrossRef]
A. Yariv, Optical Electronics in Modern Communications (Oxford University, 1997).
H. Rokhsari and K. Vahala, “Ultralow loss, high Q, four port resonant couplers for quantum optics and photonics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 253905 (2004). [CrossRef]
W. Yoshiki and T. Tanabe, “Analysis of four-port system for bistable memory in silica toroid microcavity,” in The 2nd International Symposium on Photonics and Electronics Convergence (ISPEC2012) (ISPEC, 2012), paper C-4.
C. Manolatou, M. Khan, S. Fan, P. Villeneuve, H. Haus, and J. Joannopoulos, “Coupling of modes analysis of resonant channel add-drop filters,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 35, 1322–1331 (1999). [CrossRef]
M. Oxborrow, “Traceable 2-D finite-element simulation of the whispering-gallery modes of axisymmetric electromagnetic resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theor. Tech. 55, 1209–1218 (2007). [CrossRef]
T. Miya, Y. Terunuma, T. Hosaka, and T. Miyashita, “Ultimate low-loss single-mode fibre at 1.55 μm,” Electron. Lett. 15, 106–108 (1979). [CrossRef]
T. Kippenberg, S. Spillane, and K. Vahala, “Demonstration of ultra-high-Q small mode volume toroid microcavities on a chip,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 6113–6115 (2004). [CrossRef]
A. Savchenkov, V. Ilchenko, A. Matsko, and L. Maleki, “Kilohertz optical resonances in dielectric crystal cavities,” Phys. Rev. A 70, 051804 (2004). [CrossRef]
S. Spillane, T. Kippenberg, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Ideality in a fiber-taper-coupled microresonator system for application to cavity quantum electrodynamics,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 043902 (2003). [CrossRef]
M. Cai, O. Painter, and K. Vahala, “Observation of critical coupling in a fiber taper to a silica-microsphere whispering-gallery mode system,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 74–77 (2000). [CrossRef]
P. Barclay, K. Srinivasan, and O. Painter, “Nonlinear response of silicon photonic crystal microresonators excited via an integrated waveguide and fiber taper,” Opt. Express 13, 801–820 (2005). [CrossRef]
J. F. Bauters, M. J. R. Heck, D. D. John, J. S. Barton, C. M. Bruinink, A. Leinse, R. G. Heideman, D. J. Blumenthal, and J. E. Bowers, “Planar waveguides with less than 0.1 dB/mpropagation loss fabricated with wafer bonding,” Opt. Express 19, 24090–24101 (2011). [CrossRef]
H. Lee, T. Chen, J. Li, O. Painter, and K. J. Vahala, “Ultra-low-loss optical delay line on a silicon chip,” Nat. Commun. 3, 867 (2012). [CrossRef]

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