Doped silica glass optical microcavities with high refractive index and silicon nitride integrated platforms have been widely studied to produce and enhance nonlinear optical microcomponents. Bistability and multistability have been observed in these devices offering an improvement for ultrafast optical applications. Numerical approaches to describe bistability in semiconductor nanocavities have been investigated [1], while experimental evidence of bistability and multistability in high-index silica micro-ring resonators has been shown experimentally [2].
In this work we present a numerical model to study bi-stable response in a single micro-ring resonator and to predict nonlinear dynamics, using the coupled mode theory (CMT). Stable oscillations appear when the system is perturbed from its initial steady state (stable or unstable), coupling a further optical field (probe) as input. By increasing the intensity of the probe above a power threshold of a few mW, self pulsing (SP) regime is achieved through a bifurcation mechanism. This behaviour is mainly due to the opposite contributions of Kerr and thermal detuning effects. The phase matching condition considered excludes the possibility to reach the parametric gain regime. In this scenario, one of the interesting applications is the realisation of integrated optical components for all-optical switching exploiting SP triggered by a week probe signal.
References
[1] S. Malaguti, G. Bellanca, A. de Rossi, S. Combrié, and S. Trillo, “Self-pulsing driven by two-photon absorption in semiconductor nanocavities,” Phys. Rev. A, vol. 83, no. 5, p. 051802, May 2011.
[2] L. Jin, A. Pasquazi, L. Di Lauro, M. Peccianti, E. Y. B. Pun, D. J. Moss, R. Morandotti, B. E. Little, and S. T. Chu, “Demonstration of Bi- and Multi-Stability in a High Order Ring Resonator”, pp. 7–9, OECC/PS2016.
