Optical bistable devices based on guided-mode resonance in slab waveguide gratings

We investigate properties of nonlinear resonant gratings with emphasis on optical bistability. Slab waveguide gratings with various quality factors are designed and their characteristics analyzed with a finite-difference time-domain method. Considerable field enhancements are observed in the gratings and the performance compares favorably with metallic bistable devices. Bistabilitiy based on coupled gratings is also treated. Mechanically controllable switching intensity realized by varying a gap distance between two gratings is demonstrated. Resonant nonlinear elements in this work may find applications in all-optical information processing and optical switching, and our investigation on the dependence of the normalized switching intensity and the response time on quality factor will provide a general guide line for grating-based bistable device design. (C) 2009 Optical Society of AmericaThis work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea Grant (KRF-2009-0058569), the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2007-412-J04002), and the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation grant (R11-2008-095-01000-0) funded by the Korean Government (MEST). This material is also based, in part, upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ECCS-0702307 and by the Texas Nanoelectronics Research Superiority Award funded by The Texas Emerging Technology Fund