Generation of ultrashort pulses via self-pulsations in coupled nonlinear microcavities

The energy exchange between coupled microcavities is shown to counteract the switching process, giving rise to self-pulsations. A nonlinear photonic crystal with two artificially placed defects is proposed as a representative example of such system. The coupled-mode equations are applied to describe its dynamical properties and to analyze the stability of solutions obtained by the transfer matrix method. Here we show how to control the parameters of the system in order to design a device that converts continuous waves into very regular and ultrashort pulses